Running Up That Hill
by she.a.punk
Summary: "I couldn't stop seeing it. Every time I closed my eyes I saw every little detail...every drop of blood, heard every scream...over and over in stunning HD clarity. Pot was the only thing that made it go away." Mike!Angst Protector!Harvey AllKnowing!Donna
1. Know That It Doesn't Hurt Me

**A/N**: NEXT SUMMER? Are you freakin' kidding me? I might as well enter hibernation or something. What's the point of all the days in between now and NEXT SUMMER? *deep breath* Okay, fine. So if I have to go on living as if a giant piece of my week hasn't been removed and left me hemorrhaging SuitsLove on the floor, I'm going to start posting the first of at least two multi-chap fics I've been writing in my brain and on my phone for the past couple of days. I hope you guys like...

**Disclaimer**: I don't own _Suits_ or _Placebo_...but you should really listen to this song.

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><p><strong>Chapter One - You Wanna Know? Know That It Doesn't Hurt Me<br>**

"Donna have you seen-"

Without looking up the redhead handed Harvey his misplaced cell phone.

"You have a missed call from your masseuse and Theresa said to tell you they just got in the new Mercedes you've been wanting to try."

Harvey grinned down at his secretary, scrolling through his phone's text messages.

"I love you."

"I know."

Harvey turned and walked down the hall towards Mike's cubical, a couple of thin files under one arm and eyes glued to his cell phone.

"Mike I have the-" Harvey stopped, midway through the motion of tossing a file onto Mike's desk.

There was someone in Mike's cubicle.

And it wasn't Mike.

"Mike's not here right now. I was told I could wait for him here."

The woman looked up at him with a pleasant smile and sparkling blue eyes. They were sharp too, like she knew everything that was about to happen and was waiting for someone else to catch on, a trait Harvey wouldn't necessarily have expected from a woman her age.

"You were, were you? And who told you that?" Harvey asked, hoping to sound more curious than skeptical.

The woman raised a white eyebrow at him and he guessed that he hadn't quite succeeded.

"That nice young woman at the front desk. I've found that, once you get to be my age, there's very little people wont let you do." She winked and Harvey found himself smiling. She had spunk for an eighty-something year old.

He extended his hand, "Harvey Specter."

The woman's face split into a smile and she lifted her hand to shake his, the weak grip giving Harvey the first true indication of her age. When he looked closer he could see the exhaustion written plainly on her face and the way she almost sagged in Mike's chair.

"So you're Harvey. Mike has told me a lot about you."

"Only the good things are true."

"Now why do I find that hard to believe?" She gave him a look that would have made a lesser man blush with a hint of shame but Harvey just shifted on his feet.

"And your name?"

"Mike hasn't mentioned it?"

"He usually just calls you grandma," Harvey responded, having guessed at the woman's identity. The picture of her on Mike's desk might have helped as well, even if it was at least twenty years old.

She nodded approvingly, "Then you can too."

Harvey raised an eyebrow in amusement. He folded his arms to lean on the small wall surrounding Mike's desk.

"You should have been a lawyer," he said, smiling.

The older woman's smile reminded him of Mona Lisa.

"I was a housewife, a mother of three children and a grandson, Mr. Specter. There were days when I felt like one."

Harvey smiled; she certainly explained where Mike got some of his spunk.

He leaned his head down toward her a bit, intending to continue the conversation when he heard Mike's voice behind them.

"Grandma? What are you doing here?"

Mike approached them from the direction of the file room balancing an impressive stack of files in both arms and looking more confused than Harvey had ever seen.

"Mike, there you are," she said, attempting to pull herself up from the computer chair.

Harvey's eyes widened, seeing the way the older woman's muscles shook with the effort of moving and Mike scrambled over to her, dumping the files on his desk and ignoring the few that slipped to the floor in order to lend a helping hand to the woman.

"God, grandma, how did you even get here? Does nurse Robinson know you're here?" he asked, helping her sit back down in the chair when her knees started to give out, and then muttered to himself, "Clearly I'm overpaying for that supposed 24 hour car facility."

"Oh Michael don't fuss," the woman grumbled, smoothing out her skirt to cover her shaking hands. "And the facility is fine. You just underestimate what I am capable of when I put my mind to it."

Mike huffed and rubbed a hand over his face.

"What are you doing here grandma?" he repeated, not sounding nearly as patient as he wanted to and only too aware of Harvey's calculating, narrowed stare boring into them both.

She looked up at him then, her blue eyes as clear as they had been when she was her grandson's age.

"I need to talk to you Mike," she said, the severity in her voice bringing the young man up short.

Mike folded her hands up within his and gave them a gentle squeeze.

"What is it grandma?"

Harvey could see the worry playing in the younger man's eyes and thought to himself, not for the first time, that the kid should work on not being so easy to read.

"I," she cut herself off when a couple associates walked by chatting and then she glanced at Harvey, "privately."

Mike's brow furrowed and he worked to cover his worry with a brave smile.

"Sure, um," he blinked, at a loss of where they could go in the middle of the workday.

"My office," Harvey supplied, depositing the files he'd brought with them on Mike's already toppling pile and then turning to walk back the way he'd come.

"Harvey," Mike stood, looking relieved and still a bit alarmed, "are you sure?"

Harvey didn't even turn around.

"Just hurry up before I change my mind."

It took Mike and his grandmother a bit longer than Harvey would have liked to get down the hall to Harvey's office. The woman was sharp as a tack in the mind, but when attempting to walk Harvey could see even better than when she'd been sitting how her body betrayed her age. Harvey couldn't remember anyone who'd embodied the word 'frail' so well before.

After they'd made it to the office Mike led her over to the couch.

"You need anything Mrs. Ross?" Harvey asked, hands in his pockets and heading toward the door. Mike whirled around, looking at him like he'd grown another head.

"What?" Harvey snapped, the charm and smile he'd directed at the older woman completely forgotten.

"You don't even offer clients water! You always make me do it."

Harvey ignored this and looked back at Mike's grandmother, who simply waved her hand dismissively.

"No thank you and I promise we'll be out of your hair quickly."

Harvey shook his head, "don't worry about it Mrs.-"

The woman raised an eyebrow and Harvey smirked.

"I mean 'grandma'." Harvey smiled and turned toward the door, "Mike if you don't close your mouth you'll catch flies."

Outside his office Harvey paused at Donna's desk, pretending to review some mail she handed him.

Donna caught his eye and he looked down at her finger, hovering over the intercom button. She raised her eyebrows in question.

Harvey thought a moment and glanced behind them into the office. Mike looked worried and young, kneeling in front of his grandmother the way he had been at his cubical. His earnest blue eyes stared up at her like she was his whole world and it occurred to Harvey that, for a long time, she probably had been.

He nodded and Donna pressed the button, opening the link between her intercom and the one on his desk. For a moment they heard nothing and then Mike's voice came quietly through the speakers, sounding indignant.

"I can't believe you snuck out of the nursing home! What would I have done if something had happened to you? Do you have any idea-" Mike was cut off mid lecture by Grandma Ross' voice.

"I had to talk to you Micheal,"she said calmly.

Mike hung his head, shaking it before rubbing both hands roughly across his face.

"I understand grandma but couldn't it have waited?" Mike said with forced patience.

Harvey frowned, no longer even bothering to attempt to look like he wasn't watching the pair of people inside his office.

Mike was a genius in many ways, but reading people wasn't one of them. Harvey wasn't even in the same room and he could tell Grandma Ross had something important to say, something that couldn't wait. But all Mike could see was that he was being kept away from work. And while the workaholic in Harvey was almost proud of that, the man in him wanted to smack his young associate on the back of the head.

The older woman sighed and clasped her bony hands tightly in her lap.

"The US Marshalls called."

Mike's head snapped up and Harvey narrowed his eyes.

For several long moments silence was all that came across the intercom, and then Mike's voice again, suddenly quiet and ragged.

"When?"

"This morning."

If Mike's eyes were any wider Harvey worried they would leap right out of his head.

"His case is up for appeal." the woman continued.

Mike paled considerably and got up, pacing away from the couch a bit to look outside.

"Why-" his voice came out strangled and Harvey watched him bend over to put his hands on his knees and take a few deep breaths before trying to continue. "Why would they...how..."

Grandma Ross took a deep breath, scooting forward slightly on the couch like she wanted to go to her clearly distraught grandson, but was unable to do so.

"You remember Mike. Mr. Nevins said this could happen. Once all the ruckus from the trial died down, he could conceivably try and appeal the whole-"

"What is there to appeal?" Mike whirled around, his entire face red and his grandmother drew back at the violence of his reaction, startled.

Briefly, Mike closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before crossing back over to the couch and resuming his kneeling position in front of his grandmother.

"I'm sorry grandma. I-"

"Shh," she whispered back, carding her hand through his hair before resting them both on his cheeks. "I know."

Mike nodded and Harvey found he was holding his breath. They both just sounded so _broken_.

"Harvey?"

Donna's voice cut quietly through the silence and Harvey looked over to see the redhead had switched off the intercom. "Lora just IM'd me from the front desk. She says there's someone here for Mike's grandma."

Harvey nodded and sure enough, he spotted a young woman in scrubs coming toward them rolling an empty wheelchair in front of her.

He started to move toward the office, but Donna's voice stopped him.

"Harvey, what do you think..." she trailed off, looking more concerned than Harvey had ever seen her. Of course, she liked Mike. And for Donna, that was saying something.

Harvey just shook his head, taking a deep breath and needlessly straightening his tie.

"I don't know." And he wasn't yet sure how he felt about that.

Harvey opened the door to his office and both of the people inside looked up at him, but their blue eyes seemed a million miles away.

Before Harvey could say anything, Mike spotted the woman and the wheelchair heading toward the office.

"Grandma, Nurse Fales is here for you."

The older woman nodded, but never took her eyes off her grandson.

"Mike are you going to be alright?"

Harvey furrowed his brows while holding the door to his office open. What was it that had gotten his associate so worked up so quickly? And his grandmother watching over him like he was a defenseless...well, puppy still kind of worked.

"I'll be fine gram," Mike made a pathetic attempt at a smile after helping to settle his grandmother into the wheelchair, "and I'll be better if you don't ever do anything like this again."

The woman caught his hand before he could pull away.

"Mike-"

"I'll take care of it grandma. I promise."

She smiled like that wasn't really what she wanted to hear, but she appreciated the effort.

"You always do Michael. That's the problem."

She sat back fully in the chair and the nurse seemed to take that as her queue.

"Alright Mrs. Ross. Let's head back. You, ma'am, have got some explaining to do." The nurse chided lightly, wheeling her out of the office toward the elevator.

"Don't you 'ma'am', me, Jodi Lynn." Grandma Ross shot back, but even Harvey could tell her heart wasn't in it.

Mike joined Harvey at the door to the office, watching his grandmother being wheeled away, looking like he'd aged ten years in ten minutes.

"So," Harvey began hesitantly, unsure at this point how much he actually wanted to get involved in his young associates' life. "What was that all about?"

In the corner of his eye he could see Donna roll her eyes at his lame attempt at sounding nonchalant.

Mike didn't seem to notice. He sighed as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

"She didn't want me to hear it from anybody else."

Harvey turned toward him. "Hear what, exactly?"

Mike blinked and looked at Harvey like he was seeing him for the first time.

He cleared his throat. "I'll um, I'll have those files you wanted proofed and copied before lunch." Then before Harvey could say another word he turned and started walking back towards his desk at a pace somewhere between a brisk walk and a jog.

Harvey watched him go until he couldn't see him anymore and then abruptly turned to enter his office, avoiding Donna's eyes like the plague.

He'd just sat down at his desk when Donna's voice rang out in the room.

"Really? That's it? You're just going to let him go back to work after that?"

"After what, Donna? We don't know what's going on, it's none of our business and I don't care. If he can keep getting his work done, then I say let him do it."

"Oh, so you spent ten minutes hanging around my cubical while they were in there to, what? Sort three pieces of junk mail?"

"I'm a lawyer Donna, I'm curious by nature."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night Harvey." Donna turned back to her desk, facing away from him and Harvey heard the unfamiliar sound of a click, severing their intercom link.

Harvey sighed and turned his chair to face the window. He'd always been a hands off kind of lawyer. Always been the type to keep everyone at arms length (except Donna, because not even Jessica was privy to some of the things Donna knew). But something was telling him he was about to have to change his policy for Mike.

And damned if Mike didn't seem to just have that effect on him.

TBC

**_Interested?_**


	2. You Wanna Feel How it Feels

**A/N**: Holy freakin' smokes! I FREAKIN' LOVE YOU GUYS! I got upwards of forty reviews for the first chapter! I'm like...speechless. Man, if I'd known it would be so well received I would have started posting this sooner! I've never...just...wow...So, there's no possible way I could respond to everyone's reviews individually (and bang out this update tonight, that is) so I thought I'd pose the question to the masses. How do you guys prefer to be thanked for reviewing? Is saying 'thanks' in the A/N enough? Do you want to be mentioned by name? Do you like getting PMs from the author? A quick update? Cyber cookies? WHAT CAN I DO TO SHOW MY LOVE FOR YOU AND YOUR REVIEWS? *ahem* Do try to get back to me on that. :-)

Also, apparently, kid!Mike sounds like Elmer Fudd in my head. Sorry about that...

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><p><strong>Chapter Two – You Wanna Feel How It Feels<strong>

Mike steered clear of Harvey and Donna's desks for the rest of the morning. Every now and then Harvey would catch Donna's eyes and she, never having been able to stay angry at him for long, just gave a quick shake of her head.

No, she hadn't seen him.

Still, she wasn't surprised when she spotted the young associate walking toward her desk not even five minutes before lunch, carrying all the folders Harvey had dropped on his desk that morning and a few extras.

"Hey Donna," he said, sounding more tired than the short morning seemed to have called for. He gave her a weak attempt at a smile and she felt a pang of pity for him that she tried not to let show on her face.

"Hey," she stood up, "how are you?"

Mike almost seemed to wince at the question. "I'm fine. I just have those files for Harvey that he wanted. For the case. The um, Burman case. Found the loophole he was looking for so, no trial. Just like Harvey likes." He smiled again but there was a note of strain in his voice, an edge to the way the words rolled of his tongue that made Donna's stomach tighten.

He was tense, off balance, like his whole world had shifted and he couldn't decide if he wanted to relax or not.

Donna's eyes flicked to the piece of paper on her desk that she'd printed not even half an hour ago. She really hoped she was wrong about this.

"Donna?"

She blinked and looked back up at Mike who had his eyebrows raised expectantly.

"So…would it be alright if I left these for him?"

Donna glanced inside Harvey's office, she'd almost forgotten he had that meeting with the Senior Partners today.

"Yeah Mike, go ahead." She nodded and watched Mike enter the office to leave the papers on Harvey's glass desk, then turn to leave as quickly as possible.

"Mike." She called out when he tried to slip past her desk and head back toward the cubicles.

He turned to face her warily, the words _please don't _written plainly on his face.

"Mike," she repeated, and came out from behind her wall to approach him, lowering her voice to a gentle murmur, "you know you can…talk to me. Right?"

The younger man's shoulders slumped just slightly but he nodded.

"Of course I do, Donna."

She nodded and let him walk away, knowing that acknowledgment was a step in the right direction. The smallest step possible perhaps, but a step nonetheless.

Still, she couldn't help hoping he would turn around and come back and confess everything to her (because there was something to confess, she was sure of it). She knew men didn't do 'feelings' and they didn't like 'talking' but she couldn't help hoping…

Donna very nearly grinned when Mike's footsteps stuttered and then came to an all out halt not even twenty feet down the hall. She kept her face carefully neutral and went back to straightening items on her desk so as not to appear like she was staring at him as he turned around and came back.

"Donna?"

"Yes?" She looked up, maybe too quickly. Mike wore an expression close to a grimace and he had his hands stuffed into his pockets, looking uncomfortable.

"Could you do me a favor?"

She nodded, "What is it?"

"I um," he reached up to scratch the back of his neck and then looked off to one side, "I've finished all the work Harvey needed for today. I think I might…I just need to," he sighed and dropped his arms to his sides, "I need to go see someone. And I might be gone for a while. Could you please just…" he made a vague gesture toward Harvey's office and his eyes were just so big and wide and blue_. _

Donna sighed, pushing the disappointment and worry bubbling up inside her back down to a manageable level.

"Sure Mike, I'll take care of it," she pursed her lips in a half-hearted smile and Mike nodded appreciatively turning to leave, "on one condition."

Mike froze and looked at her.

"Yeah?" he asked hesitantly.

"Tell me what's going on," she paused and added, "please Mike. I want to help."

Mike sighed, running a hand over his face, his eyes taking on that faraway look again.

"I just…cant right now, Donna." He shook his head, and added in a near whisper, "please don't ask me."

Donna felt her heart break at the desperation in his voice. She would have given him the moon if he'd asked for it in that moment.

She stepped toward him again, resisting the urge to reach out to the younger man.

"At least…at least tell me where you're going. For when Harvey asks."

Mike looked like the world was on his shoulders then. Thin, young shoulders that had had too much weight on them for too long.

"Everest Cemetery. Brooklyn."

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><p><em>"Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street wittle eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, though the sun was shinin' and the sky a harsh blue."<em>

_Amanda's brows furrowed and she paused on her way toward the stairs at the sound of the high pitched, familiar voice. Shifting the full basket of laundry against her hip, she peaked back through the doorway. She spied her son Mike, three weeks shy of four years old, sitting in the middle of the living room rug playing with alphabet blocks on the floor._

_"There seemed to be no color in anythin' except the posters that were plaster'd everywhere. The black…pistachio face gazed down from every commandin' corner." He hadn't noticed her yet, and she quietly set the basket down, listening to him ramble on to himself, fully concentrated on seeing how high he could stack his blocks before they toppled over with a spectacular crash. He always squealed with glee when they did that._

_"Mikey, baby. What are you doing?" She asked lightly, wondering at the mature words that tumbled awkwardly over Mike's baby teeth. The boy looked up at her, shocking blue eyes bursting from beneath white blonde hair. She was going to have to take him to get a haircut soon._

_"Tellin' a story mama, wanna hear?" He asked, grinning._

_Amanda nodded, still looking a big puzzled, and settled herself on the floor beside him, absently twirling the cube marked with 'x' in her hands._

_"There was one on the house front immediatewy opposite," Mike continued, back to concentrating on his blocks but putting on a big, manly voice, trying to sound the way his father did when he read to him at bedtime. "BIG BWOTHER Is WATCHING YOU, the caption said."_

_Amanda gasped and her dark eyes darted over to the well worn copy of 1984 that sat abandoned on the floor in front of the couch. She got up to retrieve it just as the front door opened._

_"Amanda, I'm home." A man called out, his hands working feverishly at loosening the tie that was around his neck._

_"Steven Ross," Amanda barked, startling both her husband and her son._

_"Have you been reading this book to Mike?" She wagged the offending copy accusingly._

_"What?" Steve shook his head, glancing down quickly at Mike and then up at his wife, "what are you talking about? Of course not."_

_"Oh really?" Amanda said, not sounding at all convinced. "Then please do explain to me how our three year old son, who doesn't know how to _read_, managed to quote it word for word."_

_"What? I-"_

_"I can wead Mommy." Mike called out helpfully from the floor. Both adults turned to look at him, stunned. Mike unfolded his legs from beneath himself and went to his father, his shoelaces dragging behind him. Small fingers wrapped around a piece of mail Steve had brought in and Mike tilted his head at it._

_"You have alwedy been apwoved for a new low intwest wate." He read slowly, then held the envelope up over his head, smiling triumphantly. "See? Easy."_

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><p>Harvey massaged his neck as he walked past the row of offices that were lined up beside his. Those damn bi-monthly Partner meetings were nothing but an excuse to subject him to three hours of eyestrain.<p>

"Did Mike finish those files Donna?" He asked as he passed her desk and went into his office. He dropped into his chair with a relieved sigh.

"Right in front of you."

He opened one eye and then the other.

"Good. Have him come down here, will you?" He said, sitting forward and rubbing his eyes, mentally preparing for another two hours of work at least before he could think about heading home.

"He's not here, Harvey."

"What do you mean he's not here?" Harvey turned a frown up to face Donna's back.

"He left. Had to go take care of something." She said, still not pausing in whatever she was typing on the computer.

"And who gave him permission to do that?" He asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I did."

"And you were promoted to his boss...when?"

He watched Donna throw her head back, possibly mutter 'give me strength' to the ceiling, and then push back her chair to get up, coming into his office. She stopped right in front of his desk, putting her hands on her hips.

"I'm not going to tell you how to manage your associate Harvey."

"All evidence to the contrary." Came Harvey's snappy retort.

"_But_ I don't think Mike is just your associate," Donna continued as if uninterrupted. "I think you also consider him a friend." She paused, letting that sink in and was privately pleased when Harvey didn't protest. "And he's a friend who needs you right now."

She turned to leave, knowing there was no good that could come out of pushing Harvey when he didn't want to be pushed.

He probably didn't need it either.

Harvey approached Donna's desk no more than ten seconds later.

"Okay, tell me what you found."

Donna immediately turned toward him, handing him the pair of papers she'd printed off earlier.

"Todd Nevins was a prosecutor in New York for nearly thirty years."

Harvey nodded, he'd run across the name more than once when he was in the DA's office.

"Specialized in prosecuting especially violent crimes," Harvey mused aloud. He read a few lines on the page and looked up at Donna, whose eyes were dark and worried, "you think this is the Mr. Nevins Mike's grandma mentioned earlier?"

Donna sat back in her chair, fidgeting with her pen. "I do."

Harvey waited, but Donna didn't continue.

"And you already have an idea as to how Mike's connected to this guy, don't you?"

Donna sighed, looking torn. "I think Mr. Nevins has a lot of sealed case files that I can't get access to and that everything about Mike's past before he turned twelve is also sealed in court records and I think that those two things are probably not a coincidence." She threw her pen down on the desk and looked up at him. "And yes. I have an idea. But for Mike's sake, I hope I'm wrong."

Harvey caught the slight waver of emotion in Donna's voice that she was trying valiantly to keep hidden. And if she saw the worry on his face too then she knew better than to say so.

Harvey nodded, folding the papers to tuck inside his suit jacket pocket.

"Do you know-"

Donna placed a small pink post it note with an address in front of him.

"Everest Cemetery in Brooklyn. Ray's outside."

TBC

**_So, someone mentioned that they hoped this wouldn't get AU. If I'm remembering right (and I like to think that I am) all we know about Mike's past is that he was raised by his grandmother because his parents died when he was relatively young and that he had a strained relationship with his father. If thats the case...then no. This won't be AU..._**

**_Don't forget to tell me what you thought!  
><em>**


	3. Make a Deal With God

**A/N**: WOW! You guys are so awesome. Seriously. Thanks SO MUCH for all the reviews. I'm trying to pay you back with quick updates, but it's still coming slower than I would like. But, I hope you like the update, so read and review!

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><p><strong>Chapter Three – Make A Deal With God, Beg Him To Swap Our Places<strong>

Mike had left his bike at the firm and Harvey had frowned at it when he climbed into the car with Ray.

Mike hated leaving that damn thing unattended.

The young associate wasn't as hard to spot as Harvey originally thought he would be. The small cemetery was barely the size of a city block and Mike stood out in his navy blue suit in the sea of graves.

Harvey approached carefully from behind, a thousand 'could be's and 'what if's running through his head. He observed Mike carefully, trying to get a clue as to what he was walking into, but none was given.

Mike stared unblinkingly at the two gravestones, standing up straight but small, in the grass. His eyes burned with tears he knew wouldn't fall. Hadn't fallen in a very long time.

"Sorry I left early." He muttered, sensing a presence behind him and knowing there was only one person it could be.

Harvey stepped up beside him and he saw Mike tense slightly, hunching his shoulders and clenching his fists in his pockets.

There was a beat of silence that Mike didn't notice, it was too loud inside his head for silence to make a mark.

"Your parents," Harvey said, reading the names 'Amanda' and 'Steven Ross' on the tombstones.

Mike bit his lip. "Yeah."

Harvey read the dates below the names and did some quick math in his head, trying to figure out how old Mike would have been when they died.

His mouth thinned into a line and his chest tightened in sympathy.

"I'm sorry." He said seriously.

Mike sighed, trying to move the weight that had settled across his chest.

"It was a long time ago."

Harvey fell silent again, feeling the papers he'd stuffed into his jacket getting heavier by the moment.

"Mike-"

"You're gonna ask me too aren't you?" Mike spoke up, eyes still glued to his mother's name. "Why can't you and Donna just leave it alone?"

Harvey looked over at him, the anger in the young man's voice seemed to come from out of nowhere.

"Because you're my associate."

Mike rolled his eyes.

"And my friend."

Harvey narrowed his eyes and, just as he suspected he would, Mike turned to look at him, looking a mix of suspicious and hopeful. Harvey stood his ground.

"You don't care about me." Mike said finally, the words coming out as more of a question than a statement.

Harvey didn't even blink.

"And you know me better than that."

Their gazes stayed locked for several moments, wind whipping at Mike's hair and Harvey's suit jacket.

And, Mike realized, he really did. Harvey might never have said the words, but Mike _knew better_. Appreciation and relief washed across his face before being replaced with that look of mild shock and anxiety that had been there before.

"It's kind of a long story." He said quietly.

Harvey nodded, following the younger man's eyes to the flowers laying peacefully on the ground in front of them.

"I got time." By now Donna would have arranged his schedule and he would have all the time in the world.

Mike sighed and closed his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face.

"I think...I need a drink."

* * *

><p><em>"How was the game?" <em>

_Steve froze mid movement, mid breath. The house was dark, but he could hear his wife's voice coming from somewhere in the living room. He finished locking the deadbolt on the front door and turned around. _

_The lamp on the table beside the couch came on, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow and revealing his wife, sitting in her pajamas with her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at him._

_"Amanda…I thought you'd be asleep." He said, trying to keep his voice light._

_"How. Was. The game?" She repeated, voice low and dangerous._

_"Mandy, baby, look I-"_

_"His conferences were tonight." She said, leaping up from the couch but keeping her voice to a harsh whisper. "He was counting on you to be there."_

_"Amanda-"_

_"But you had to work late. Nothing new there, nothing malicious. I explained that to Mike and he understood. Because he's a good boy and he loves you. And even though he was disappointed, because school is something he is good at and he enjoys and he wanted to share it with you…he understood." She pushed her hair out of her face and gestured toward the kitchen. "So imagine my surprise when Flo Johnson called and said they'd missed me at the game tonight and that she was sure you would tell me all about it when I was feeling better." _

_Steve winced. "Look, it's not what you-"_

_"How could you do that Steve?" Amanda shook her head, her heart aching at the memory of the teacher asking if she'd finally get to meet 'this father I've heard so much about'. And the incredibly sad look on Mike's face when he'd had to tell her 'no'._

_"That boy **worships** you. All he wants is for you to be proud of him."_

_"I am proud of him," Steve argued, "I just don't see why going to the stupid conferences is such a big deal. They're just going to tell us what they always do. He's a good kid. A smart kid. Shy but smart. I get it, great. Why do I need to be there for that?"_

_Amanda's mouth dropped in shock. "Because he's your **son**." She hissed. "And if you had been there tonight you would have known that they're talking about moving him ahead another grade."_

_"You've got to be kidding me," Steve took another step closer, waving a hand toward the ceiling and Mike's bedroom, "he's already small for his age and a year ahead in school. He gets picked on everyday. He's never going to learn to fit in if they keep pushing him forward."_

_"He does fit in, Steven. He fits in with the smart kids. He blows all those achievement tests they give him out of the water and he needs to be challenged."_

_"Throw the kid a football, that'll challenge him plenty," Steve grumbled under his breath. _

_Amanda's whole face turned red and she very nearly shouted out loud, but remembered at the last second that their son was trying to sleep upstairs._

_"I can't believe you just said that."_

_"What am I supposed to say, Amanda? He spends all his time in that room reading-"_

_"Why is that a bad thing? He likes to read. And he **wants **to make you proud. But instead of being there tonight you went to see some other guy's kid play high school football."_

_Steve sighed, slumping his shoulders and rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. "Look, it was one conference, it's not that big of a deal."_

_"It is to him!" She shook her head, "Steve. He is your only son. He may not be a star football player but he's **yours**. And you are never going to get these days back with him. Please. Just…try to see how wonderful he is. Show him that he doesn't have to be a jock to earn your love."_

_"I never said that."_

_"Maybe not with your words. But Mikey's smart. We both know that. And he doesn't need your words to hear you say it."_

_Steve just shook his head, brushing past her toward the hallway and shut himself in the downstairs bathroom. Amanda watched him go and took another deep breath, closing her eyes. _

_She heard the stairs creak and looked up, surprised to be met with the wide blue eyes of her eight year old son. _

_"Mike-"_

_In an instant he was gone back up the stairs. But Amanda didn't have to be as observant as she was to see the tears that had been shining in his eyes._

* * *

><p>Harvey originally told Ray to head back toward his apartment. But the look on Mike's face, the tense set to his shoulders and jaw, told Harvey that wasn't the best place for the kid. Not if he wanted the story.<p>

And while Harvey wasn't quite sure yet what exactly was going on, he did want to know.

For Mike's sake if nothing else.

"You know what Ray, lets...lets go to Mike's place instead."

Mike glanced at him quickly and Harvey was pretty sure he saw a note of gratitude in those blue eyes before they turned to look out the window.

They two men stayed quiet for the rest of the ride to Mike's apartment. Once they'd arrived Harvey followed him wordlessly through the worn down hallways and up the creaky stairs to the top floor. Mike glanced over his shoulder a few times, trying to gauge Harvey's reaction to the surroundings. The man looked surprisingly…at ease.

"I wasn't born in a five million dollar condo, you know," Harvey said just before starting the climb up the last flight of stairs. Mike ducked his head. He hadn't realized Harvey had noticed his stares.

Mike frowned at seeing a black plastic bag hanging from the knob of his apartment door.

"Secret admirer?" Harvey quipped.

Mike cautiously looked inside, then shook his head. "Not quite." He handed the bag to Harvey who looked inside to see a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a Harvard hoodie.

_His _Harvard hoodie, as was everything else in the bag.

"Donna."

Mike's brow furrowed. "How did she-"

"Because she's Donna."

Mike pondered this a moment and then nodded.

"Fair enough."

He pushed the door to his apartment open and walked in, already pulling his tie over his head and shedding his jacket.

"Bathroom is through there if you want to change."

Harvey nodded, watching Mike disappear around the corner to the bedroom area of the small studio apartment, and taking it all in. He'd never actually been _inside _Mike's place before, but he could see why the kid would feel comfortable there.

The couch was old, but made of soft worn-in leather and it looked comfortable. There were figurines and random posters on the walls that made Harvey tilt his head but what struck him most were the books. Books _everywhere._ Pushed two deep on the shelves and shoved into every crevice, piled in every corner and on every flat surface in the room. Fiction, non-fiction, law and science, cookbooks, DIY books, craft and music books. Harvey was almost overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. And the place smelled like clean laundry and coffee and paper.

It was all just so _Mike_.

"Aren't you going to change?" Mike asked, reappearing in the room, hair mussed and hands shoved into the pockets of a grey hoodie, looking tired and somehow resigned_. _

Harvey simply nodded and went to the bathroom to change. When he came back out Mike was settled on the couch, staring straight ahead and halfway through two fingers of alcohol in the glass in his hand. A bottle of Jack Daniels sat on the coffee table in front of him (a copy of a Biography of Ansel Adams being used as a coaster) and a matching glass sat empty beside it.

Harvey silently made his way over, enjoying being in the casual clothing and how relaxed his associate seemed to be despite the heaviness on the air. He settled into the couch (it was as comfortable as it looked) and was finishing his first sip of the burning alcohol when Mike finally spoke.

"You never thought to ask, did you?"

Harvey frowned, but Mike was still staring straight ahead, seeing nothing.

"About?"

Mike almost looked like he was going to smile, but then didn't.

"I know you think I'm smart. I _am _smart. But you never thought to ask why a smart kid like me would be stupid enough to start smoking pot."

Harvey shrugged. He'd never really thought about it. It wasn't so uncommon a thing for college kids to get into, and he told Mike as much.

"I started smoking when I was fourteen." Mike said, the words coming out in a harsh breath. Harvey met Mike's angry gaze before he suddenly turned away, finishing his drink quickly and pouring himself another. Privately, Harvey wondered how well the scrawny kid could hold his whiskey.

"Why did you then?" He asked softly. It was almost as if Mike hadn't heard him. He didn't move, not even to drink the alcohol he'd just poured.

"Do you have any idea what it's like," he began slowly, quietly, "to remember…_everything." _

Harvey opened his mouth but Mike continued before he could speak.

"Not just the important things. Not just the things you _want _to remember, or even the things that made an impact. Just…_everything." _He let out a hollow laugh, swirling the alcohol in his glass before bringing it to his lips and downing nearly all of it.

"You know that expression, 'clear your mind'?" he shook his head self-deprecatingly, "I have _no idea_ what that means. I'll lie awake at night and I'll hear pieces of a conversation that I heard as I walked by that day, or something someone said to me earlier this week or hear a lecture my father gave me when I was _five_. And I'll see these memories like movie clips playing in my head, everything from the mundane to the…the terrible," his voice dropped off and he looked up toward the wall. Harvey followed his gaze to a picture that had to be of Mike and his parents, if the small child with white blonde hair and blue eyes was anything to go by.

"And it all just floats around, buzzing inside my head and pushing against my brain and no matter how hard I try I can't turn it off and all I want to do is sleep, just fucking close my eyes and _go to sleep," _he screwed his eyes shut, "But I can't and it won't stop and all I want is to bang my head against the wall until it all comes oozing out my ears."

Mike laughed again and it made Harvey shudder. It wasn't a happy laugh. Mike sat back against the couch to stare at the small bit of liquid left in his glass. Harvey remained frozen on his perch at the other end of the couch, unsure of how to proceed with this unfamiliar, emotionally fragile version of his associate.

"Trevor helped me." Mike said, shutting his eyes against the tears he could feel pressing forward. "I'd gone without sleep for three days straight…I was going crazy," he smiled and Harvey had to look away.

"I nearly ripped a kid's head off for bumping into me in the hallway at school and Trevor…he knew about everything and he just…grabbed me, shoved me into his piece of crap car, drove to the nearest empty parking lot and handed me my first blunt." Mike licked his lips and looked over at Harvey for the first time, but the man wasn't looking at him. "I slept for nearly twelve hours."

Harvey let his eyes fall shut. He knew giving up any drug was hard. Maybe marijuana wasn't cocaine or heroine but…Mike had been smoking for over ten years. The kid _had _looked a little worn out and rough around the edges that first week, and the idea that Mike was going through withdrawals had crossed his mind, but he'd gotten all his work done on time and Harvey had just figured he could handle it, _would _handle it. And that had been the end of it.

He'd never thought…

God, no wonder the kid looked so tired all the time.

"Trevor helped me," Mike said again, this time in a whisper, sending shivers down Harvey's spine.

"I couldn't stop seeing it. Every time I closed my eyes I saw every little detail…every drop of blood, heard every scream…over and over in stunning HD clarity…turned out pot was the only thing that made it go away." Mike shook his head slowly, the world swimming pleasantly as he did so and he noted with some relief that the whiskey was starting to hit his system.

"Blood?" Harvey repeated, turning to look at his associate. Mike's eyes were a million miles away again, like back in his office with his grandmother.

Years away.

"Mike," he said, forcefully, and reached out to touch the kid's knee, bring him back to the present.

Mike jumped at the touch but brought his eyes over to him, clear and sharp.

"What blood Mike? Who's screams?"

Blinking hard, Mike sat forward and refilled his glass, barely resisting the urge to just take the whole bottle. The memories were pushing against him now, woken from their work-induced dormancy by his grandmother's words this morning and brought to the fore by his admission only moments ago.

"Harvey," he swallowed thickly and finished his drink in one quick gulp. His mouth still felt too dry. "Does the name Theodore Baker mean anything to you?"

TBC

**_I feel like this is getting really emotionally heavy, let me know if that turns you off, should I try and lighten it up a bit in the next chap?  
><em>**


	4. See How Deep the Bullet Lies

**A/N**: My fastest update yet! And it's especially for you guys you lovely readers!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four - See How Deep The Bullet Lies<strong>

Harvey furrowed his brow in thought. Theodore Baker, the name was certainly familiar. It was a reference to a court case, before his time but he'd seen it used as precedent for...

His eyes widened and he turned towards Mike, who was still staring unblinkingly into his glass.

"People vs. Theodore Baker. It was all over the news more than...nearly fifteen years ago. He...he was a killer." Harvey's stomach clenched, remembering what Donna had said about Todd Nevins.

_Especially violent crimes_

"You remember his MO?" Mike asked hoarsely swishing the alcohol in his glass and then taking a sip.

Harvey stayed silent, the details of the case suddenly rushing back to him.

"Do you?" Mike's eyes met his and Harvey realized it wasn't a challenge, but a plea.

_Don't make me say it._

"He targeted married couples," Harvey began, holding Mike's eyes with his own, neither seemed able to look away. "He would break in. Tie up the husband...and…" he swallowed, saying the next part gently. "He raped the wife."

Mike's left eye twitched. Ten years ago the tiny movement would have been the beginning of a wince, now it was just a statement of fact.

"Then he killed them both. There were never any witnesses."

"Until the last time," Mike's voice was low and didn't sound like his own. "The last time he left a witness. The worst kind you could possibly leave...one with perfect recall." He trailed off and tore his eyes away, gluing them to the floor.

"You still sure you want to hear the story?"

Harvey felt awash with relief. The kid was giving him an out. This was a burden he bore, one that hung heavily on him everyday, memories that plagued him when he tried to capture elusive sleep. But he was willing to let Harvey off scotch free. Then Harvey wouldn't have to suffer through it too.

And then right after the relief came the anger and a surge of protectiveness right behind it. Because why should Mike have to deal with it all on his own? And who had convinced him that was okay in the first place?

Harvey shifted on the couch so he was looking more directly at Mike.

"Tell me."

Mike licked his lips and nodded.

"Baker's last victims were my parents." he stated what Harvey had already guessed. "I was ten. I was supposed to be asleep already but I was in the middle of this awesome book," he smiled wistfully. "Its called 'Hatchet' about this boy who's plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness and he has to survive all by himself," the smile melted away and Mike's eyes glazed over. "I was under my bed with a flashlight reading...that book probably saved my life. He never knew I was there."

Harvey waited but Mike stayed quiet for a long time. Suddenly he stood up from the couch and wandered over to the window. Framed by the light like that Harvey was struck, not for the first time, with how skinny the kid was. He felt a bit of disappointment in himself and made a mental note to keep a better eye on what Mike was eating from now on.

"I heard the glass break when he broke inside." Mike started again and Harvey had to strain to hear him from across he room, but didn't dare move.

"My mom was already asleep, and I heard my dad get up to go check on it. Then there was a struggle...fighting in the hallway and my dad swore and yelled to my mom to call the police."

Harvey heard Mike's voice thickening and his breathing getting harsher. He stood up from the couch but didn't make a move toward him. Not yet.

"My heart was pounding in my ears, I knew something was wrong but I couldn't move. Even though all I wanted was for my mom to come get me and tell me it was all ok…I couldn't make a sound." Mike kept his eyes open, not wanting to intensify the memories by closing them, and stared at the gray sky outside.

"After a few minutes it got quiet. And I couldn't take it anymore. I crawled from under the bed and went to the door. Five steps. My mom had told me to clean it earlier that day but I hadn't because I was reading. I nearly tripped over my library books." Mike tilted his head, seeing his childhood bedroom in his mind's eye.

"When I got to the hall I could hear crying, but I wasn't sure where it was coming from. If it was mine or not. Ten steps down the hall to my parent's bedroom. There was a picture that had been knocked to the floor off the wall. It was taken when I was seven and we went camping upstate. I'm not smiling in the picture. I hate camping." Harvey frowned, standing almost directly behind mike now. The kid wasn't moving, he was barely breathing.

"I push open the door to my parents bedroom and...and there's already blood. My dad is tied up, he looks scared, terrified. And my mom is...that man is...and I cant..."

Harvey took hold of Mike's shoulders and turned the younger man toward him. Mike's eyes were glazed over, no longer seeing anything in front of him.

"Mike, are you with me?"

"My mom is crying."

"Mike, listen to me," Harvey gave his shoulders a shake, "Its not happening now Mike. You're just remembering."

Suddenly Mike was slipping away from him taking a few steps back and shaking his head. Harvey took a step forward to follow him, wanting to reach out but worried he would spook the kid.

"Mike."

"I saw everything Harvey." Mike said miserably, and the tortured look on his face made Harvey think the use of the past tense was for his benefit alone. "And now the case is up for appeal. There's nothing to _appeal_ Harvey! I see _everything_."

Harvey nodded and raised his hands in calm. "I know kid. I know you do."

Mike shook his head again, more frantic and his eyes were screwed shut. Finally Harvey couldn't take the anguish on his face anymore and he reached out...but caught air. Mike was gone.

* * *

><p><em>Mike sat on the back porch steps of his house, digging into the dirt with a stick. His grandmother would be angry with him. He was getting his suit dirty.<em>

_But Mike couldn't seem to find it in himself to care._

_It was still summer, but almost fall. Warm enough to for the windows of the house to be open, but cool enough that he wasn't too hot in his black suit jacket and pants._

_It was good too, because he didn't really care to take it off._

_Behind him he heard the screen door open._

_"Mikey, do you want to come inside?"_

_He knew that voice. It was Aunt Marylyn. She wasn't really his Aunt, but his mom had always told him it was okay to call her that. So he always had._

_Mike didn't even turn around. Didn't stop digging into the dirt with the stick. Didn't look up._

_Her heals clicked across the back porch and then there was the rustle of fabric as she knelt beside him._

_"Oh Mikey, I'm so sorry."_

_He tolerated her smoothing his hair with her hand, but when the apology came off her lips he shrunk away from her. He didn't need her apologies._

_He needed his parents back._

_The back door opened again and his grandmother's voice came from behind them._

_"Come on inside Marylyn." She said. She sounded like she'd been crying._

_The woman Mike had always regarded as family stood up with a sigh. She turned to leave and Mike was hit with the scent of her perfume._

_His eyes immediately filled with tears that ran down his cheeks and he bit his lip._

_His mother wore that same perfume._

_The screen door closed again but Mike could hear the two women speaking just inside the door._

_"How is he doing?" Aunt Marylyn asked, sounding sad. Everyone sounded sad today._

_"The way you might expect the little boy who'd just witnessed his parent's murders to be doing." His grandmother said bitterly and Mike winced, beating down the nightmarish images that immediately flooded into his brain._

_Clenching his teeth, he screwed his eyes shut and pressed his hands against his ears, trying to remember the song his mother had taught him to sing when he was overwhelmed by his own mind._

_Tears of frustration leaked through his eyelids when he couldn't recall the tune._

_A tap on his knee startled him and Mike jumped back, opening his eyes and was met with a face he didn't know._

_He frowned at the man, older than his father even, with a bald head and a brown mustache, who was crouching on the grass in front of him._

_"Are you Mike Ross?"_

_Mike stared at him, for several seconds, briefly reviewing all the faces he'd seen at the funeral. This man hadn't been one of them._

_He nodded._

_The man's face split into a friendly smile._

_"Hi Mike, my name is Todd. Todd Nevins. It's nice to finally meet you."_

* * *

><p>Harvey blinked at the spot where Mike had been a moment before and the sound of retching drew his attention to the open bathroom door across the room.<p>

After a millennia, and he'd vomited the meager meals he'd consumed in the past twenty four hours because _God it was like it was all happening right now, _Mike sat back from the toilet with a sigh. He rested his head against the wall with his eyes closed. The room was suddenly thirty degrees too hot and his stomach hurt but the buzzing in his head was slowly dying down. Mike figured he was probably just too tired to think anymore.

And for that, he was thankful.

He hadn't had a flashback that intense in years.

Something cool pressed against his hand and Mike pried open one eye to find Harvey holding a cup of water out to him.

"Thanks," Mike mumbled, taking a swig to swish the acrid taste out of his mouth and spat it into the toilet. He sighed and the next time he opened his eyes a hand was hovering just in front of his face. He took it gratefully, allowing Harvey to help him to his feet.

Bracing himself against the sink Mike took a few steadying breaths, and while Harvey noticed the shaking hands and knees, he wisely chose not to comment.

Mike bent over to rinse his face and Harvey shifted uncomfortably in the doorway.

"Well…I'm gonna go make us something to eat."

Mike frowned. Considering what he'd just done, food wasn't exactly at the top of his list of things to do.

Harvey shrugged, reading his mind.

"You need to eat," he said, dismissing the look of unease on Mike's face, "You're too damn skinny."

He turned and walked away and Mike stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. If he had the energy, he would have scowled at himself. Haggard was an understatement. His eyes were red, dark circles hanging ominously beneath them and the corners of his mouth pulled slightly downward.

Outside he could hear Harvey knocking around in what passed for his kitchen and squinted his eyes briefly at himself, trying to remember the last time he bought groceries.

He shrugged when he couldn't come up with anything specific.

"Michael. All you have in your refrigerator is two week old chinese and orange juice." Harvey's voice confirmed his suspicions from outside.

"Vitamin C and all that." Mike muttered, and slapped his hand against the bathroom light, joining Harvey out in the main area.

The older man looked strange to him all of a sudden. He hadn't noticed before the casual clothes Donna had brought him. Somehow Harvey didn't seem near as intimidating in a hoodie and frowning into his tiny freezer.

"I'll help," Mike said rubbing his face and crossing over to the kitchen, trying to think of something he wouldn't gag at the idea of eating.

"No, you will go lay down while I do this." Harvey said in that 'not going to argue with you on this'.

He missed the puzzled look that crossed Mike's face and then the longing one he sent to his unmade, very comfortable, entirely too often neglected bed.

Mike winced inwardly, the thought of closing his eyes seemed a dangerous one right then.

"Harvey I can..." He tried again.

"Stay out of my way while I do this?" Harvey's back was still to him while he pulled jars and bags out of the cupboards, occasionally wrinkling his nose and throwing something away, other times just shaking his head and putting the item back.

Mike hesitated, taking a small step toward his bed and then stopped.

Harvey turned around.

"Go on," he said, suddenly sounding more gentle than Mike could remember having heard before. "I'll wake you when I'm finished here."

_I'm not going anywhere._

Mike smile half-heartedly and gave a slight nod. There was really no point in arguing with Harvey when he looked at him like that anyway. And the thought of going to sleep didn't seem quite so daunting when he knew Harvey would be hanging around nearby.

Harvey watched Mike walk over and drop onto the bed, making himself comfortable on top of the covers and wasn't the slightest bit surprised when Mike's breathing evened out in sleep within seconds.

TBC

**_Thanks so much for all the reviews so far! I'd love to hear from you this time!_**


	5. Thunder In Our Hearts, Baby

**A/N**: Yay for an update! Many thanks, as always, to all the reviewers! You make waking up at 7am worth it (because, no joke, check my email is the first thing I do when I wake up). Hope you all like the update. I should be packing (or sleeping) right now, but instead I am bestowing this update upon you lovely readers!

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><p><strong>Chapter Five – Thunder In Our Hearts, Baby<strong>

It didn't make any sense.

But it made perfect sense.

In dreams everything always made sense, until he woke up and realized how strange it had all been.

In the dream (nightmare) it hadn't been strange that his mother's eyes were still open. And it wasn't odd to him that Baker was sitting on a chair in the corner, watching him as he stepped inside his parents' bedroom, only to find them both dead.

It had scared him, but it hadn't been strange.

He'd felt the chest constricting fear and heart thumping rage because there was _blood _and there was nothing he could _do_, but it all made sense.

Which was wrong.

Nothing about this (why my parents? Why now? Why not me? Why them?) made any sense.

He'd walked up to his mother. Her skin was cold, somehow he knew that even thought he hadn't touched her and she hadn't been dead long enough to be cold. He'd looked at his father, but he was somewhere else, in another room and Mike didn't want to go any closer to him.

They were both gone but Baker was there, staring at him, wearing the suit he wore to trial fifteen years ago and Mike wanted to kill him just as badly now in dream time, where he was somehow a child and a grown man all at once, as he had back then. But there was nothing he could do.

He couldn't help them any more this time than he had when it really happened.

And that made sense.

Because it wasn't really a dream.

Memories were _so much worse _than dreams_. _Twisted and wrong but still so _real_ it took his breath away_. _

Mike sat bolt upright in his bed, sweating and cold and hot and breathing too hard.

He forced a deep breath into his lungs and rubbed both hands over his face, resting them there while he got his breathing back under control. After several minutes he was able to push the memories (dreams, whatever) back away from his conscious mind a bit, but they still lingered there in the shadows with words like 'appeal' and 'failure' and 'happening again' that made it impossible to get back to sleep.

After throwing his feet over the side of his bed Mike found himself tangled up in an afghan that would have usually been on the couch. He frowned at it, his sleep muddled brain not quite comprehending how it got to his bed, and then tossed it aside, deciding it was a conundrum to be dealt with at a later time.

Shuffling over to the dining area, Mike flicked on a light and grabbed his messenger bag, rifling through its contents until he came up with a couple manila folders and dropped them on the dining room table.

"Care to tell me why I'm awake at two in the damn morning?"

Mike jumped at the sound of a sleep rough grumble coming from the couch and frowned. He reached over and flicked on another light, illuminating the rest of the apartment, and Harvey groaned, rubbing his face.

"You're on my couch." Mike stated, holding the file he'd pulled in one hand, the other still resting against the light switch as if frozen.

"With reasoning skills like that, it's no wonder I hired you." And that just wasn't fair. No one should be able to be that sarcastic when they'd just woken up.

"Why are you on my couch?"

"The bed was taken." Harvey mumbled into his hands, still covering his face in an attempt to keep out the light. "Do you mind?"

Mike tilted his head, "it's a little weird, yeah."

Harvey moved his hands and sent him a look. "I meant the light, genius. I don't give a rat's ass how you feel about me sleeping on your couch. I wasn't going to call Ray to come back out and get me at midnight and this thing is damn comfortable."

Harvey illustrated his point by snuggling deeper into the cushions and Mike was hit with an overwhelming wave of _bizarrestrangeodd_ at the sight of his boss, looking more like a college kid than a high paid corporate lawyer, curled up happily on his couch in jeans and a hoodie.

Deciding it was more than he wanted to deal with at two in the morning, Mike switched the light back off and went back over to the table, settling down with the file out in front of him and a highlighter in hand.

He heard Harvey shift a bit, but didn't look up, intent on getting lost in his work.

Words helped, Mike had found. When his mind was hell bent on destroying him, words sometimes helped. It was one of the reasons Mike had loved reading so much as a child.

And there were a lot of words in a sixty-page business proposal.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Mike jumped again, he'd been so engrossed in what he was doing he hadn't heard Harvey get up and come to stand beside him.

"Stop doing that." He grumbled, frowning up at Harvey and then back at the file. "What's it look like I'm doing?"

"The opposite of sleeping," Harvey answered flippantly, moving over to the refrigerator, "which is what most normal people are doing at this hour."

"Can't." Mike said simply, narrowing his eyes and highlighting a portion of the paper in front of him. A second later a plastic bag with a sandwich inside landed on the table right under his nose.

Mike picked it up and raised an eyebrow.

"Peanut butter and jelly?"

"Is it my fault the only food you have in your house is something most people stop eating in the fifth grade?" Harvey asked, rolling his eyes and leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest and feet crossed at the ankles.

Mike shrugged and pushed the sandwich aside.

"It's not there for decoration Mike."

"I'm not hungry."

Harvey didn't doubt it. He could still hear Mike's haunted voice as he recounted (relived) his parent's murder's ringing in his ears. Harvey himself barely had an appetite, he could only imagine how Mike felt.

"I don't care." He said, frowning.

"That seems to be a running theme with you." Mike replied in the same monotone as before, highlighting something else on the paper.

"Eat." Harvey ordered, ignoring the comment and coming over to take up the seat across from Mike, his tone leaving no room for argument. Mike's blue eyes moved up to him and Harvey raised a no-nonsense eyebrow at him.

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"I'm busy."

Harvey rolled his eyes at the lame excuse but leaned over to read what Mike had in front of him.

"What is that? It's not one of mine."

Mike's cheeks flushed pink, the first emotion Harvey had seen from him since he woke up.

"It's Louis'."

Harvey's face darkened and Mike shrugged, reaching for the sandwich in hopes of turning aside some of the older man's wrath.

"What? Don't look at me like that, okay? I'd already finished everything of yours and I needed something else to do. Louis loves to dump this crap on me all the time anyway and, as you can see," he motioned around, encompassing the quiet apartment, the darkness outside and the light hour all at once, "I have a lot of free time on my hands."

Harvey made a displeased noise and pulled the file away from Mike and turned it around to read it.

"What are you doing?" Mike asked around a mouthful of sandwich. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he scrunched his nose. "Too much peanut butter."

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Harvey repeated Mike's earlier words back to him with the addition of a yawn toward the end. "Peanut butter is the part that's good for you."

"Looks like you're reading one of Louis' files, which has to be against one of your policies or your religion or something," Mike replied, pulling the crust off his sandwich absently, "Jelly tastes better."

"Just eat your food. All of it." He looked pointedly at the discarded crusts. "I'll help you finish these so we can get some more sleep before going into the office tomorrow."

Mike finished his sandwich in silence and then stared over at Harvey, shifting a little on his seat.

"What?" the older man asked after a few minutes, dropping the file and rubbing his face before folding his arms on the table and staring back at Mike.

"Are we um…I mean, do you…" Mike trailed off unsure of how, or even if he should, broach the subject.

Harvey shook his head lamenting, not for the first time, how easy the kid was to read.

"I still have some friends at the DA's office," he said quietly holding Mike's gaze when it snapped up to him, "first thing tomorrow I start calling in favors."

* * *

><p><em>Mike tossed and turned in his bed, eyes scrunched shut and teeth clenched tight.<em>

_"Dammit." He muttered to himself, kicking his covers the rest of the way off, legs that had grown at least two inches in the past year hanging off the end of his mattress._

_He pushed his hands against the sides of his head and resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall._

_"Just shut up." He growled, squeezing his hands together in frustration, wishing his brain would leak out his ears. "Shut up so I can get some fucking sleep."_

_He stayed still for a moment, but his mind still buzzed with thoughts and ideas and memories and flashbacks. His mother's laugh and his father's eyes and the dosages of grandma's pills and that new girl Jenny's pretty smile and the formulas for the geometry test he had tomorrow._

_His head was pounding now, and he clenched his hands into fists, his stomach twisting with rage and frustration. He was just so tired._

_"Please," he turned his head and pressed his face into his pillow, unsure of whom the plea was meant for, "please I just want it to stop."_

_A few moments later he flung his hand out to his nightstand, knocking a few books and an empty pop bottle to the floor and grabbed the cordless phone._

_He dialed the number from memory, swallowing hard past the lump of guilt in his throat._

_"Yeah?" Trevor's groggy voice came across the line after only three rings._

_"Trev," Mike muttered, eyes still screwed shut, "you got any?"_

_There was a pause when Mike thought Trevor was probably trying to figure out what Mike was asking him. It was nearly three in the morning after all, a little confusion was warranted._

_"Not right now, but I know where we can get some pretty quick." Trevor answered and Mike could hear him moving around, probably already getting up."Bad night?"_

_Mike reached up to rub his face._

_"Hellish."_

_"Okay, man. I'll be there in five."_

_Mike hung up, knowing he would have to walk to the end of the block to meet his friend or else the sound of the piece of crap car Trevor drove would wake up the whole neighborhood._

_He pulled on a pair of jeans and looked around for his jacket in the dim light provided by a full moon. He picked up his shoes to put on downstairs not wanting to risk waking his grandma by walking in them on the hardwood floors._

_He carefully slipped into the hallway and was surprised to find the woman standing in her doorway, arms crossed tightly over her chest, eyeing him._

_Mike dropped his eyes to the floor in shame and his shoulders sagged heavily. He waited quietly for her to speak, knowing that if she told him to he would go back to bed and suffer through another sleepless night without so much as a hesitation. He owed her at least that much._

_But instead she just closed her eyes, nodded her head and hugged her arms tighter around herself._

_"Be safe." She said in that quietly strong voice of hers._

_Mike could only nod and bent to kiss her cheek as he walked by, shoes still in hand._

_He didn't look back. He didn't need to look back to see the look of anguish and disappointment on her face._

_It was already etched into his brain with everything else he'd ever seen and wished he could forget._

* * *

><p>"Where's Mike?" Donna asked handing Harvey his coffee when he finally got in at close to ten the next morning. "You look like hell," she added, propping a hand against her hip.<p>

Harvey closed his eyes in appreciation of the first sip and then beckoned her into his office. He and Mike never did get back to sleep (he was going to kill Louis if that was a workload he made a habit of dropping on his associate…he might kill him regardless, on principle) and he honestly wasn't sure how much longer his legs would hold him up.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically, dropping into his chair with a sigh. "And I gave him the morning off, he'll be in this afternoon. Wanted him to try and get some sleep."

Donna tilted her head. Harvey was leaned all the way back in his chair and, she wasn't sure if he was aware of it or not, but his eyes had drifted closed toward the end of that sentence.

"That's good…what about you?"

"I've gotten a full night's sleep almost every night for the past nine months." He opened his eyes, "Mike hasn't."

Donna raised her eyebrows but didn't comment. Harvey wouldn't appreciate her pointing out how suspiciously close to 'caring' he sounded right then.

"Package arrived for you from the DA's office." She pointed at a thick padded envelope she'd put on his desk.

Harvey nodded, setting aside his coffee to open it.

Donna didn't move. "What are you doing getting stuff from the DA? You don't have anything to do with them anymore, especially now that Cameron is gone."

Harvey answered without looking up, already opening files and sorting papers across his desk in front of him.

"You were right. About Todd Nevins and Mike."

Donna looked stricken.

"Oh no," she breathed, sympathy and pain flashing across her eyes. "He wasn't a…victim, was he?" She winced at the idea.

"Not in so many words." He sighed and looked up at her. "He witnessed his parent's murders."

Donna's eyes fell shut and she covered her mouth with her hand, moving toward the windows so her back was to the room.

"How old was he?" She asked after a moment, her voice raw with emotion.

"Ten." Harvey answered darkly, looking down at a police report and crime scene photos.

Donna shook her head, "Dammit Mike," she whispered to herself.

Harvey shuffled through a few more papers and eventually Donna turned around, looking composed if not a bit shaken.

"So what are you going to do?"

Harvey pursed his lips and picked up a courtroom drawing of a little boy in a dark suit and blonde hair giving testimony on a stand that looked too big for him.

"I'm gonna win."

TBC

**_Now please, bestoweth upon me your thoughts!  
><em>**


	6. Unaware That I'm Tearing You Asunder

**A/N**: Sorry this took so long! I was moving and starting a new job so it's been a little crazy. Also, one day, Mike will Dominate in my 5and1 fic, my angst!muse just seems to be more productive than my humor!muse. I hope you guys like this anyway!

* * *

><p><strong> Chapter Six – Unaware that I'm Tearing You Asunder<strong>

When Mike got in he stopped at Donna's cubicle first thing. He still had his messenger bag slung across his shoulder so she knew he hadn't even been to his desk yet. The red head stood up immediately, pinning him with one hundred percent of her attention and it knocked Mike off balance a bit (usually a solid sixty was the best he could hope for).

She stared at him, head to toe and good and hard until Mike was fidgeting uncontrollably.

"How are you doing?" She asked finally, the tired lines of his body and dull sheen to his eyes telling her more than his words ever could.

"I'm okay," he said with a half shrug and small smile. Donna was taken aback a moment. It was closer to the truth than what she was expecting. _Strong _wasn't usually a word she associated with the kid.

Mike cleared his throat, unaware of Donna's epiphany. "Did Harvey get that package from the DA?" He asked, sounding hopeful and worried at the same time.

Donna barely kept herself from biting her lip and nodded.

"Yeah, but um-" She glanced into Harvey's office to see him facing away from his desk toward the window. Same as he had been for the past few hours. "I don't know if you should go in there right now."

"Why not?"

"I…don't think it's good news Mike," Donna said, knowing it wasn't going to be a good enough reason for Mike. Why did he have to be so stubborn all the time? She just wanted to _protect him_ dammit.

And she hated the sinking feeling that told her she wasn't going to be able to this time.

Mike smiled bitterly. "Didn't really expect it to be."

Harvey's voice surprised them both when it came across the intercom on her desk.

"Just send him in, Donna."

With a sigh, the she nodded and watched under dark lashes as Mike turned and pushed into the glass office, stopping just in front of Harvey's desk.

"So?" Mike said, staring at the back of Harvey's head and holding the strap of his bag tightly with both hands. "Did you um…find out what's going on? Do you know why they're trying to get the verdict overturned?"

"Should have known he'd still be making my life hell." Harvey muttered.

Mike frowned, "who?"

Harvey sighed and stood, pushing his hands into his pockets. "Cameron."

Mike felt his stomach sink and he swallowed several times, his mind racing with the possibilities of Harvey's next words.

"He's had his hands in every case to come through the court system in New York for the past thirty years."

Mike felt frozen to his spot, watching the older man turn around and pick up a file, holding it out to him.

He swallowed hard and took folder, ignoring the way his hands were trembling. He flipped it open but for the first time in his life he couldn't comprehend a single word on the page. It may as well not have been written in English.

"What…I…"

Harvey leveled him with a straight stare and spoke softly. Almost gently.

"He buried evidence. It's just Cameron's style. He thought Baker was guilty."

"Baker _is _guilty." Mike snapped, bringing his eyes up to Harvey briefly before gluing them back to the pages in front of him, his mind buzzing too loud to understand anything on them.

Harvey kept going as if Mike hadn't spoken.

"The problem with burying evidence Mike, is that if it comes to light you open up a lot of questions about the entire case and there's potential for the original ruling to be overturned."

"Like with Clifford Danner's case." Mike muttered.

"Right. Only this time it wouldn't end quite the way we'd hoped."

Mike swallowed hard. "What evidence did he bury?"

Harvey didn't respond and after a moment Mike looked up questioningly. Harvey sighed, not knowing what excuse he could give that the kid would accept (knowing there wasn't an excuse in the world the kid would accept because this was his _parents_) and he picked it up to toss to him.

Mike frowned as he flipped through the second file, the words finally coming in to focus, but making no more sense now than they had before.

"Fingerprints, clothing fibers…semen samples," he shook his head, looking up at Harvey. "I don't understand."

"All this evidence points to there being another man in your house that night. Someone who wasn't Baker," Harvey watched Mike carefully. He could see how hard the kid was trying to keep from putting all the pieces together. He honestly couldn't blame him for that.

"But there was no one else." Mike insisted, looking back down at the file and shaking his head.

Harvey looked away, glancing quickly at Donna who was watching them both openly from her desk, a look of deep concern and _be gentle Harvey _written on her face.

"Were you with your parents all day that day, Mike?" He asked quietly. "Both of them?"

Mike was quiet a moment, thinking.

"Most of the day. My mom sent my dad and I out to 'bond' that afternoon. We weren't really on the best of terms, never had been. He took me to play miniature golf, which I sucked royally at," Mike very nearly snickered at the memory of his father's exasperation that day. "Try to keep your ball out of the water Mike…" he muttered, hearing his father's voice in his head.

Harvey's brow furrowed and he glanced at Donna again. She shrugged.

"Mike?" He asked cautiously. The younger man looked up and blinked, remembering himself and he shook his head.

"Sorry," he pinched the bridge of his nose, "I..um…after that he took me to the arcade. He read a book while I played games and then we went home." He looked up at Harvey, meeting his brown eyes squarely, "There was no one else in the house."

"So there were several hours when your mom was at home and you weren't?" The older man said slowly.

"What are you saying Harvey?" Mike snapped, shutting the folder with a note of finality and dropping it to Harvey's desk.

Harvey looked at him, in his skinny tie and pale skin and open face and _too young_.

He shook his head.

"Nothing. Just…go to your desk, kid. I'll drop off some files for you to work on in a few minutes."

Mike shook his head, taking a step closer. "No, Harvey. Tell me what you're trying to say."

"Not doing this with you, Mike." Harvey said, sounding resigned. He sat back down in his chair, unbuttoning his jacket and opening a file.

"Why not? You think I can't handle it?" Mike's voice rose and trembled with emotions that were nothing if not a roller coaster lately. "Is that it?"

"Mike," Harvey tried, and if Mike hadn't been so close to the edge he might have heard the concern and warning the single syllable was trying to convey.

"No, look, alright? I'm not some lost little kid okay, Harvey? I'm not a puppy and I don't need you to protect me."

"Mike you need to calm down-"

"Just give it to me straight, Harvey goddammit!"

Harvey stood from his desk, breathing evenly through his flared nostrils, a stark contrast to Mike's loud, irregular breaths.

"You want it straight?" He said in a low voice, his eyes narrowed, harshly silencing the voice in his head that said he should give Mike this one and let the kid walk away. "You know exactly what I'm saying Mike. There was someone in your house that day that left a semen sample and it wasn't Baker or your father."

"No. That's not it," he shook his head, pointing a finger out at his mentor, his face flushed completely red, "my mom wouldn't do that, okay? She wasn't having an affair. My mom and dad's marriage might not have been perfect but they were happy."

"Regardless of if it's true or not it's reasonable doubt, that's all the defense needs. They can weave whatever story they want as long as it fits the evidence."

"I saw them Harvey. I saw him do it!" Mike was all out shouting now and Harvey clenched his teeth. Though if it was in response to his associate's temper or the growing urge to smack the kid and then crush him into a hug, he couldn't tell.

"They can argue that Baker only broke in to rob the place and your parents were already dead. You were ten. You were scared. Your parents had been murdered."

"That's not-"

"Maybe you saw your mom with the other man and didn't want to believe it. Maybe your dad found out about your mom's affair and went crazy and killed them both." In the corner of his eye Harvey saw Donna stand up from her desk and move toward his office.

"Stop it."

"And you, being a scared little kid, testified it was Baker instead."

"That's not true you know it's not true!" Mike squeaked shaking his head violently, "That's bullshit!"

"Harvey that's enough."

At the sound of Donna's voice Harvey did stop, and blinked, realizing what he'd done. Mike had moved into the corner of Harvey's office, as far away from the man as he could get. He'd treated the poor broken kid like a criminal on the stand and Mike was paying for it, looking every bit the lost, little puppy he professed not to be.

Harvey rubbed his face with his hands, the heavy weight of guilt settling uncomfortably in his stomach.

"Mike," he said softly, "Mike look at me."

Slowly, Mike did. There was betrayal and anger floating in those blue eyes. He didn't look like Mike anymore.

Harvey came out from behind his desk, carefully approaching his associate, who eyed him warily and looked like he would have backed away if there had been anywhere to go.

"You know I believe you Mike," Harvey said quietly, watching Mike start to relax. "I know you know what you saw. But a jury isn't going to be so easy to convince. Not with this new evidence."

Mike took a deep breath, his eyes sliding to one side in thought. "We need more."

Harvey nodded, glancing back at Donna briefly before looking at Mike again.

"You're going to have to testify, Mike," he said, with a grim sigh, "again."

* * *

><p><em>Mike sat in the passenger seat of Trever's car, his forehead leaned against the window, staring out at nothing. The voice of the dean, loud in his head, wouldn't stop knocking around and he was forced to listen to his disappointment over and over again like a CD on repeat.<em>

_Beside him Trevor was driving with one hand on the wheel, the other draped on the console between them. The dark haired boy wasn't as broken up as his friend was about getting kicked out of school, but he felt a bit badly about how hard it seemed to be hitting Mike._

_"I have to tell them."_

_They were the first words the blond had said since they'd gotten into the car and Trevor tensed upon hearing them._

_"Mike," he said, using his bargaining tone, "buddy, don't do this to yourself."_

_"I have to tell them Trevor," he said again, more forcefully and turned to look at him just long enough to catch Trevor's eye before turning back to the window, sniffing and ducking further into his coat._

_Trevor knew he wasn't crying. He hoped he wasn't anyway._

_"Mike," he tried again._

_"Just take me will ya'," he interrupted quietly, "or drop me off here and I'll walk."_

_Trevor didn't doubt he would. So without a word he changed lanes and put on his blinker, taking them where Mike wanted to go._

_It was cold outside, after all._

_"Mike," Trevor said his name quietly when his friend put his hand on the door handle after they'd stopped. Mike paused but didn't turn._

_"For what it's worth I-I'm sorry."_

_Mike waited a second longer and then gave a quick nod._

_"I'll uh, just get a cab home," he said quietly, and got out of the car, shutting the door behind himself. He didn't turn back as he walked into the cemetery, but heard Trevor's car when he drove away and was glad that his friend had taken the hint._

_Mike didn't really want to be with him right now._

_Mike didn't really want to be with himself right now._

_He stopped in front of twin grave markers under a birch tree. It was barely spring, with snow still gathered in the places where shadows kept it too cold to melt, the trees still gloomy and devoid of leaves._

_He sighed, stuffing his hands deeply into the pockets of his coat and dropping his chin all the way to his chest. His hair was just a little too long and brushed gently against this forehead and ears when the wind blew._

_"I'm sorry," he said quietly and sniffed when cold nipped at his cheeks. "I know this isn't what you want to hear."_

_His eyes flicked between their names a few times, wondering if it made him crazy that he still talked to them like they were there._

_"I uh, I just got kicked out of school," his eyes bounced away, embarrassed and then traveled back to their names again, "I needed money and I, um, I just...I was stupid." He shook his head, trailing off, unsure of how to break the news to his parents. Unsure if it mattered._

_"I'd like to tell you I needed the money for something noble like food or rent but, uh, I needed it," he swallowed hard and cleared his throat, staring at his shoes, quickly losing the battle for composure. "I needed it for drugs. To get high."_

_ He dropped to his knees, wishing there was someone there to yell at him for being such an idiot._

_"I…I don't…I'm sorry," he looked at his mother's name, "if I could just remember that damn song you used to sing me, mom, I wouldn't need the pot," he shrugged, feeling helpless and ignoring the tears gathering unchecked in his eyes. He laughed bitterly, it was just like fate to play so cruel a trick on him. "But it's the one thing I can't remember. The one thing."_

_He started talking too fast, wishing to explain to his mother, wanting her to understand._

_"I can't remember the words, I can't remember the tune. It's like it's on the tip of my brain but I just can't grab it and it drives me crazy sometimes. I just can't amke my mind shut up and all I can think about is you but I can't remember the song and I-I…I'm just sorry, mom." And just like that his walls were crumbling, leaving him exposed and broken. He leaned forward until his head was resting on the cold, soggy ground and couldn't even find the energy to feel ashamed as tears poured from his eyes. "I'll make you proud mom," he gasped out, squeezing his eyes shut._

_"I promise, one day. I'll make you proud."_

* * *

><p>Mike watched for her head in a sea of people moving briskly in all directions. He craned his neck and strained his eyes, sidestepping rolling suitcases and waving hands, searching earnestly for the one that belonged to him.<p>

Jenny saw him first.

She quickened her pace and her grin widened exponentially when Mike spotted her, purse on one arm and polka dot suitcase in tow.

He turned that familiar boyish grin toward her and she couldn't help herself. She dropped her suitcase and ran to him, jumping up into his arms and his wrapped around her waist without hesitation.

And for a moment there was only them.

When Mike pulled away his lips felt like a strange mix of pleasure of pain (he hadn't realized lips could bruise before Jenny) and he stared down into her gray eyes and he was hit with a far too unfamiliar, but overwhelmingly pleasant sense of _home. _

"Hi," he said quietly, pushing her hair back from her face and cupping her cheeks.

"Hi," she said back, eyes sparkling. Jenny turned around to pick up her suitcase and Mike swung her carry on over his shoulder, their fingers laced like habit as they walked toward the terminal doors.

"So how's your sister and the baby?" Mike asked after they were both in a cab.

"She's great," Jenny grinned over at him. "And he's beautiful. He's so tiny and helpless and just," she sighed, pressing a hand to her chest, "just beautiful, you know? Eight pounds, two ounces, twenty inches long." She shook her head wistfully, lost in memory.

Mike just smiled, lifting their entwined hands to his lips and looking out the window.

"Mike?"

"Hm?" He turned toward her to find Jenny looking at him, her expression a mix of hesitation and curiosity, "have you ever thought about…kids?"

His eyebrows went up but he hoped he didn't look as shocked as he felt.

"Um…"

"Look, I know we're young and we've both got our careers and everything but I was just wondering if the idea had ever occurred to you."

"No, Jenny it's not that," he reached up with his free hand to rub his face, "it's not _only _that." He sighed and looked back over at her, the memory of his parents running too close to the surface right then for him to even think of this. To bring someone into this world? Into the possibility of something terrible happening? He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

And Jenny must have seen something on his face because she just nodded and squeezed his hand.

"It's okay Mike, I understand." She gave him a small smile and Mike slowly leaned in to kiss her, thankful all over again to have someone who knew him so well.

Later that night Jenny sat straddling Mike's lap, illuminated only by candlelight. Jenny had started bringing them over almost from the very first night she'd spent at Mike's place and started setting them up on any flat surface she could find. Mike hadn't even noticed the wax invasion until his place inexplicably started to smell like sugar cookies.

"Mike," Jenny pulled back, breathless, her hair a mess and both Mike's hands up her shirt.

"Yeah?" He mumbled distractedly, moving his kisses to her jaw and neck.

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything," she closed his eyes when he started sucking on her earlobe, trying to collect her scattering thoughts, "but what's…uh…what's going on?" she manged finally.

Mike pulled back, frowning. "Is there a problem?"

Jenny sighed, swinging her leg off of him and folding them both under her, readjusting her shirt.

"I think there is. You going to tell me about it?"

If Mike had looked confused or blank somehow she would have chalked the feeling up to jet lag and happily gone back to what they were doing. But she'd known Mike longer than probably anyone else in the world with the exception of Trevor and his grandmother, and he didn't look confused, he looked like he knew exactly what she was talking about.

He shifted his gaze to a handful of candles on the table and Jenny scooted closer to him. "Mike?" She raised her hand to the back of his head, carding her hand through his hair soothingly. "Tell me what's wrong."

Mike hesitated, he didn't want to tell her, but he couldn't for the life of him remember why.

"It's Baker." He said roughly, after a moment of silence.

It only took Jenny a second to recognize the name.

"What about him?" She asked, fearing the worst.

Mike licked his lips, shaking his head. "He…they're going to try and overturn the verdict. Trial is set for later this week."

For the first time in a long time Jenny realized she didn't know what to say. Unfolding her legs, she shifted to sit beside him and reached for his hand.

"Tell me what I can do." She said finally.

Mike took a deep breath and turned to her, closer to tears than he'd been in years.

"Just…stay." He said, his voice barely there at all.

All at once Jenny's heart broke and she reached out, gently hugging Mike to her chest, stroking his hair and letting him cling to her, knowing he was too strong to let the tears fall. A few hours later found Mike sound asleep, his head in Jenny's lap while she kept up her constant, gentle stroking of his hair.

Jenny stared at the ceiling all night, wondering how much more of this Mike could take.

TBC

**_I'd love to hear from you!_**


	7. Running Up That Road

**A/N**: Here's the next chapter, I hope it lives up to expectations!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven – Running Up That Road<strong>

Harvey picked Mike up at home the morning of the arraignment. Mike was quiet, staring out the window and fidgeting in his seat. Harvey could be seen in Ray's rear view mirror casting quick, concerned glances in the kid's direction every few minutes.

Still, the older lawyer chose to let him have his space and didn't specifically address the situation until they'd arrived at the courthouse and were standing outside the room they'd been assigned.

"How you doing?" Harvey asked quietly, a few folders Mike had not been privy to tucked neatly under his arm.

Mike swallowed convulsively, his wide eyes straining to see inside the courtroom.

"For a guy about to be face to face with his parent's killer for the first time in fifteen years…I'd say pretty good." Mike tossed a brittle smile to his mentor and Harvey's mouth tightened. Mike knew it wasn't a good time for jokes, especially not bad ones.

But the only things he knew to do in a situation like this were babble uncontrollably and make jokes, and he had been so on edge this morning he couldn't even eat and the idea of saying more than a handful of words at a time was setting off his new found nausea all over again.

"Hey," Harvey stepped into Mike's sight line so the kid had to focus on him. "Are you okay with this? Really? You don't have to be here you know." The tone on anyone else would have been intimidating and maybe a little demanding. But Mike had witnessed both intimidating and demanding from the man more than once and took it for the near brotherly concern it was.

Again, he tried to smile, and he thought he might have succeeded a little more that time because Harvey didn't look like he was trying to see through him anymore.

"I'll be okay Harvey. Lets just do this." He nodded once and straightened his suit jacket and cleared his throat.

Harvey stared at him a moment longer, silently musing to himself how he was going to have to figure out a way to get the kid to sleep more because those bags under his eyes were just _out of control. _

"Alright. But look, if you need to you leave. You don't need my permission." He raised his eyebrows, wanting Mike to know he was serious. He didn't need the kid's eidetic memory to remember all too clearly the way Mike had crumbled during his flashback a few days ago.

Mike swallowed hard but nodded, appreciating the gesture even though he was sure he wouldn't need it. Wild dogs couldn't drag him from the courtroom today.

Harvey turned and lead the way into the courtroom, and Mike followed, the younger man's eyes looking over the people on the left side of the room, trying to find Baker's face.

He wasn't sure why it was so important to him that he see him. He could close his eyes at any given moment and perfectly recall Backer's face. The hollow blackness of his eyes and acne scarred cheeks and sickening leer. But fifteen years had passed. Fifteen years and Mike wasn't a little boy anymore and maybe he just needed to know for sure that he wasn't afraid of Baker they way he had been back then. Angry and hurting and confused yes, but he'd been afraid too. Because he was ten back then, and the man had _killed his parents_ and that called for a little fear, didn't it?

Mike was vaguely aware of Harvey entering the actual court area of the room and setting his things on the small table beside the prosecutor, but didn't turn to watch him.

He couldn't see anything anymore.

Just Baker.

He was on the other side of the room, dressed in orange and handcuffed to his chair, chin lifted high with pride? Arrogance? Mike didn't know. He couldn't even have told anyone asking where he was in that moment.

He stopped walking and stared.

Baker had gone bald at some time in the past fifteen years, acquired a scar on his left cheek that hadn't been there before and grown a goatee, but it was him. It was _him. _

And Mike was suffocating and on the verge of being sick at the same time and he figured this was probably what it was like to watch a train wreck because he _couldn't fucking look away. _

Suddenly there was warmth in his hand and he squeezed the hand that had put itself in his, hoping it was someone there to save him from this moment. This _nightmare. _

"Mike."

He blinked, but still couldn't tear his eyes away from his parent's murderer. The man who'd haunted his dreams and waking for the past fifteen years.

The man who had the nerve to be trying to call himself innocent, and was willing to drag his mother's name through the dirt to do it.

"Mike." The voice said again, and a hand came up to rest on his cheek, turning his face down and away from Baker. With Herculean effort he pulled his eyes in the direction of the hand and the voice and locked them on a much more pleasant face.

"You said you had to work." He whispered, his throat suddenly raw.

Jenny shook her head, smoothing her hand across his cheek once before dropping it to squeeze his shoulder.

"I decided I had somewhere more important to be."

If Mike could have, he would have smiled. Instead, like a magnet, his eyes bounced back up to Baker, and he nearly gasped to find the man staring back over at him.

Mike's mind went blank.

Later, he would amend his thoughts.

_That _was what it was like to watch a train wreck.

Because seeing pure hate and soullessness and evil and looking it dead in the eyes and wishing to kill it with your bare hands…that was something impossible to look away from.

The judge entered for the first time that day and Jenny pulled him by the hand, breaking the trance and sitting them in a pair of seats directly behind Harvey and the prosecutor. Harvey caught Mike's eye and raised an eyebrow.

Mike took a deep breath and nodded, answering the unvoiced question.

_Yeah. I'm still fine. I promise. _

The arraignment was quick, only a few minutes. The other lawyer said there was new evidence to be presented, the prosecutor argued the evidence was irrelevant and Baker was too dangerous to risk putting back on the streets.

At least that's what Mike assumed happened. His brain had gone right past buzzing and now there was an incessant ringing in his ears and they felt full of cotton so that he could barely hear what was going on, let along concentrate.

So instead he clung to Jenny's hand and the idea that Harvey was still level headed and in control, even though Mike felt like the world was spinning right out from under him.

Harvey still had _everything_ under control. Like always.

So everything would be fine.

And then, just like that, the arraignment was over.

Jenny, without needing to be asked, informed Mike that the trial was set for ten days later on a Thursday, leading him from the courtroom as soon as the judge banged his gavel and asked for the next case to be brought forward (and before Mike could catch sight of Baker again). They stopped out in the hallway, waiting for Harvey to file out with everyone else.

She spun to face him and Mike put his hands on her hips like habit, letting his eyes fall shut when she rested her hands on either side of his face.

Jenny waited, watching him with careful gray eyes as his jaw clenched and unclenched under her palms and noting the slow, deliberate way he breathed, getting his mind back in order.

Several moments later he opened his eyes and nodded at her.

"Okay."

"Okay?" She asked, searching his face for any sign of deception, but there was none. He was as okay as he could be, and that's all she could ask for.

They realized a small crowd had gathered and Mike looked up, a puzzled frown forming on his brows.

Jenny, taking her cue from Mike, turned to mold her side to his, looking out at the small group standing nearby, clogging the entrance of the courtroom.

"I remember you." One of the people said and Mike turned toward a woman with dull red hair and an angry scowl on her face. "You're that kid. The one that testified."

Mike swallowed hard but nodded. "Yeah."

"The last victim's kid." Someone else added. Mike pursed his lips and Jenny's hand tightened on his hip. "I always admired what you did back then."

Before Mike could respond the first woman spoke again.

"For what? It's not like it mattered. Baker's still appealing and he's gonna get off. It wasn't enough." She said accusing and bitter and grief-stricken but still cutting Mike to the quick so that the air rushed out of him.

"Hey!" Jenny cut in, stepping forward with murder in her eyes, "why don't you just shut up, huh? Its not like _you_ were up there on that stand testifying against that monster."

"I didn't see anything! But if I had I guarantee you Baker would be getting the needle right now, not sitting pretty in the county hold up waiting for a retrial!" The woman shot back, angry tears gathering in her eyes and slipping down her cheeks. "He killed my sister!"

"And he would still be out there killing if it weren't for Mike." A voice spoke up from behind them and they all turned to see Harvey. He looked out evenly over the group with a cold look of tightly reigned fury on his face. "Now I understand how hard this must be for all of you, but why don't we just keep moving before someone says something they'll regret."

He spoke quietly and without the harshness that showed on his face, but the point got across and slowly the group started to break up and move away, some throwing sympathetic glances back toward Mike, some still looking for someone to blame and some were just shell shocked, lead by the hands of lovers and friends.

After they were gone Harvey approached Mike, looking the kid over carefully and for the second time that day.

"I'm fine." Mike said before Harvey could ask. He looked at Jenny and then Harvey, "really."

Jenny blinked and bit her lip, staring at Mike and plastering a quick, I-believe-you smile on her face when he turned to look at her again.

Harvey made a noise of tacit agreement, still frowning, and lead the way to the doors, listening to Mike and Jenny following behind. It wasn't that he didn't believe Mike.

It was that he _did _believe him.

Mike was almost robotic with how absolutely _fine _he was.

And that was what worried Harvey.

* * *

><p><em>"What's next step on the recipe Mike?"<em>

_Seconds of silence passed and Peggy Ross frowned as she poked her head out of the kitchen in search of her grandson._

_"Mike?"_

_The boy was sitting on his knees backwards on the couch with his head resting on his hands and staring out the window._

_As she approached, wiping her hands on a dish towel, she could see what had captured the little boy's attention outside._

_"Do you want to go out and play?" She asked, taking a seat beside him and leaning back, her eyes on her grandson._

_Mike sighed, blowing air up his face so that his blond bangs flew up out of his eyes and then fell again. He shook his head._

_"Are you sure?" She glanced over her shoulder at the group of neighborhood kids outside playing stick ball in the street. "It looks like fun."_

_Again, Mike shook his head then quietly added, "The other kids don't like me." _

_"Oh," she cooed, reaching over to rub his back soothingly, "you're just new, Mike. They don't know you yet."_

_Mike had only come to live with her a little under a month ago. She'd been worried he would experience some culture shock, going from the inner city apartment where he'd lived with his parents to the quiet long island suburbs where Peggy herself lived, but the boy had acclimated well to the living arrangements and the new school. She'd hoped he'd take to the neighborhood kids just as easily._

_Mike seemed unconvinced of his grandmother's reasoning and shook his head again. "S'not it."_

_Peggy pursed her lips but continued to rub Mike's back. He was just as stubborn as his father sometimes._

_The sound of the doorbell followed immediately followed by a quick knock at the door had the woman levering herself up from the couch. The doorbell rang again and she sighed at the impatient visitor._

_"Coming!" she called just as she got to the door._

_Upon swinging it open Peggy was greeted with the sight of a little boy, just about Mike's age but a little bit shorter and much thicker, which wasn't hard as Mike generally resembled a bean-pole, wearing a backwards baseball cap and dirt on his cheeks._

_"Um, Hi ma'am. I'm Trevor. We heard there's a kid living here now? Can he come out?" The said, talking too fast and leaning his face against the screen door, trying to see inside. "We need another player on our side." He explained and then, apparently having caught sight of Mike, a grin brightened his face and he waved, "Hey! You wanna come out?"_

_Peggy looked over her shoulder to see Mike peering curiously around the corner at the door._

_She wasn't thrilled with this boy 'Trevor's manners, but he seemed nice enough and she'd been hoping one of the kids would reach out to her understandably shy grandson._

_"Well go on Mike. Put your shoes on."_

_Mike's eyes widened and after another second of contemplation and an encouraging nod from Trevor, Mike disappeared from the door, only to return seconds later equipped with his shoes as well as a cap and baseball glove of his own._

_"See ya' Grandma." He grinned, brushing past her and out the door. _

_Peggy watched from the door and smiled, feeling like a weight had been lifted from her chest._

* * *

><p>Harvey was cleaning up his kitchen from dinner when his cell phone rang. He grabbed the vibrating object off the counter and, not recognizing the number, stuck it between his shoulder and ear to answer while he finished drying his plate.<p>

"Harvey Specter."

He heard someone shifting on the other end of the line and a sharp intake of breath.

"Uh, hi, Mr. Specter," the female voice cleared her throat, "this is Jenny? Mike's girlfriend?"

Harvey hadn't needed the clarification.

"Yeah, I remember you." He furrowed his brows, closing his kitchen cabinets and heading toward the record player playing softly in the living room. "Is Mike okay?"

The girl's voice seemed strained and he thought he heard her sniff slightly. _God help him _if she was crying.

"Um, I actually was kind of hoping you could answer that. Is he with you?"

This stopped Harvey in his tracks and his focus zeroed in to the phone call.

"No. I thought he was with you."

That's where Mike usually was when he wasn't at the office.

"Um, yeah, he was up until a few hours ago. He left after dinner, which he barely ate any of," she added in a quiet grumble and Harvey thought she'd probably said that last part to herself, but he would remember to talk to her about it later anyway.

"He said he needed to get some air but he forgot his phone here and I haven't heard from him," her voice kept becoming muffled and then getting clear, like she was moving around a lot while talking to him and Harvey's brows drew together as he processed this.

"I mean, I know he's not a baby or anything, I'm sure he's fine. It's just that this thing with Baker has really been messing with his head and he's not acting like himself. It's not like him to go off for so long without saying something to me."

Harvey could plainly hear the worry in Jenny's voice now, and he could also tell she wasn't crying, thankfully.

"Okay, where have you already checked?" He said, grabbing his coat off the dining room chair and heading toward the front door for his shoes.

"His place, mine, his grandmother's and a place he and Trevor used to go sometimes." She blew out a harsh breath, "I'm really sorry to bother you with this Mr. Specter but I just thought…"

"You did the right thing," Harvey quickly assured her, awkwardly pulling his jacket on while keeping the phone pressed to his ear. "I'll go check the office and a couple other places he could be. You back to his place in case he goes home and let me know if he shows up."

"Okay," he heard her sigh in relief, glad not to be alone in her worry. "Okay, you too."

Harvey was about to respond in the affirmative when he swung his front door open and was greeted with the sight of a tired, but overall physically fine Mike Ross.

"Jenny?"

"Yeah?" Came the hopeful response.

"I've got him."

He heard a muffled 'thank god' come across in his ear and silently echoed the sentiment. A distracted, emotionally unstable Mike Ross was not what he wanted wandering the streets of New York at this time of night.

"I'll take care of this."

"Thank you." He ended the call and finally addressed Mike, who'd been staring at him the entire time.

"Mike."

"Was that my Jenny?" He asked, a slightly bemused expression on his face.

"Yeah," Harvey nodded, "apparently you left your phone there and she didn't know where you were."

Mike sighed, resting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. "Went for a walk. Needed air."

Harvey raised an eyebrow, "so I heard." He associate made no move to come in or leave, so Harvey made one for him.

Reaching out to grab Mike's sleeve, he all but dragged the kid into his apartment, shutting and locking the door behind him. When he turned around he saw Mike had wandered over to Harvey's extensive alcohol collection, seemingly debating over which one he preferred.

"By all means, help yourself." Harvey said dryly as Mike poured himself a glass. And judging by the way he was wobbling, it wasn't his first drink of the night.

"Make a detour on your way over here did you?"

"Mmph." Mike said, bringing the glass to his lips and wandering over to the windows that lined the apartment. He winced when the liquid burned this throat and then sipped more.

Harvey watched quietly, trying to decide how far from sober Mike actually was and if the kid had come here looking for comfort (he hoped not, he had a perfectly good girlfriend at home) or reassurance (he could handle that, but he really would prefer to consult Donna first) or an ass kicking (right up Harvey's alley, but somehow unlikely).

"They're right, you know," Mike said finally, his voice rough from the abuse Mike was putting it through with the astringent alcohol.

Harvey frowned, dropping his keys on the glass dining room table and shrugging off his coat.

"Who?"

"Those people at the trial."

Harvey winced, remembering the incident that morning. Mike had acted unaffected at the time, but clearly that's all it had been. An act.

"Mike, they're victims, just like you. They were upset. You can't take what they said to heart."

"Why not?" Mike spat, turning around, blue eyes dark and on fire. "You said so yourself, Harvey, I was just a kid. Ten years old. I could have been confused. I could have blocked out what really happened. Maybe it was all in my head."

Mike was trying to provoke him, Harvey knew. The kid was a glutton for punishment (he'd figured that out after only about a week of working with him) but he wouldn't rise to the bait. Not again.

"Is that what you believe?" He asked, being sure to keep his voice level and hold Mike's gaze. His eyes were surprisingly for how much liquor Harvey guessed he'd consumed so far that night.

Mike licked his lips and looked away, throwing his head back to take in the rest of the drink in his hand and then stared down at the empty glass for several moments.

"Today was the first time," he cleared his throat and swiped a hand across his nose, sounding more like himself when he began again, "the first time I've seen him since that day."

Harvey was thrown again for a second by the sudden change in topic and Mike's demeanor, but, as was to be expected by a lawyer of his caliber, he caught up quickly.

"I know." He'd been watching Mike in court that day. He saw the way the kid froze when he caught sight of Baker, for a half second he'd been worried he was going to black out, lash out, or freak out.

A dark smile briefly took Mike's lips and he shook his head at the empty glass. "He looked at me. He looked at me and for a second I couldn't even think…I was ten years old again…" He looked at Harvey who was still standing somewhere between the dining room table and the couch, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark jeans.

"And when my mind started working again do you know what my first thought was?"

Harvey's eyes narrowed and he waited. He knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.

"It was…I want to kill him." That dark, foreign smile flashed across his face again and a shiver blossomed at the back of Harvey's neck, radiating down his spine.

He believed him.

"I want to stab him in the throat and watch him bleed. I want him to hurt."

Harvey licked his lips, "that's pretty graphic kid." He said, wishing to lighten the mood a little bit. 'Killer' wasn't a very becoming look on Mike.

"So was what he did to my parents." Mike shot back, but some of the anger left his eyes and he turned to look out the windows again.

Harvey took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over his face. Wishing to give Mike a moment to collect himself, he went over to the drinks and poured himself one and, after a second of hesitation, grabbed the bottle and took it over to Mike, wordlessly refilling the younger man's glass.

"Why do we do it Harvey?"

He looked over. Mike's mood had shifted again. He sounded young now. And broken.

He wouldn't look at him and didn't immediately continue so Harvey prompted him.

"Do what?"

Mike shook his head at a thought he hadn't voiced aloud.

"Due process. Trial. Court. Research. Legal arguments. Law…why do we bother with any of it? When innocent people still end up in jail and guilty people go free…does what we do even matter?" He turned and finally met Harvey's gaze, a look in his eyes the mentor recognized. It was the lost puppy look Mike didn't even know he had. Harvey was faced with it every time the kid came to him with a genuine problem, in over his head and scared to death he was going to drown.

Always, Harvey was there to pull him out and teach him to float and, when absolutely necessary, give CPR.

But Harvey didn't have a life preserver in his back pocket this time.

"I like to think it does." Harvey answered honestly. "It does for me."

He have the heart to tell the kid he'd had similar thoughts once. He'd questioned the legal system long before he found out what Cameron was doing and had decided criminal law wasn't for him for that very reason. There were no guarantees. At least with corporate law the only thing destroyed if someone lied and scammed and cheated was their money. At the end of the day, they were still free, not rotting in a 10x10 jail cell for a crime they didn't commit, nor wandering around free when they deserved the electric chair.

"But I can't answer that for you, kid."

Mike sighed and nodded, looking back toward the window, a lost look on his face that made Harvey's stomach twist.

Slowly, Harvey reached up and laid a hand on Mike's shoulder.

"We're gonna get him, though, aren't we Harvey?" He asked after a moment, almost in a whisper.

Harvey sighed, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Yeah kid, we're gonna get him."

TBC

**_Please drop me a line if you feel inclined to do so...also any ideas for flashbacks? I'm pretty well fresh out...  
><em>**


	8. The Deal I'm Makin'

**A/N: I've said it before and I'll say it again. Addictions are bad for your life. But there's something about these characters…I just keep coming back for more. I decided to take a break from fanfiction while the show did and I think it was good, but the show is back and so am I…by the way congratulations to us for SURVIVING that ridiculous hiatus! **

**Well, now that this fic is officially AU, I'm gonna try and wrap it up to get on to bigger and better adventures . I'm picking up right where I left off, so this timeline diverges sometime before the last episode of the first season. **

Previously on 'Running Up That Hill': _Mike questions everything he stands for, everything he knows about himself when the man that murdered his parents gets his case brought up for appeal. Harvey knows the only way to win is to put Mike back on the stand. That is, if he can keep the kid eating and sleeping enough to be coherent._

* * *

><p>Chapter Eight - The Deal I'm Makin'<p>

Harvey looked at his watch under the pretense of adjusting one of his cufflinks. Had he really only been sitting there for three minutes? His seat at a barstool height table near the window of the small restaurant and was bathed in midday sunlight He glanced out into the street when he heard a taxi honk its horn and start yelling something in Arabic out his window.

"Hi."

He turned the face the female voice and smiled.

"Hi, thanks for meeting me," he gestured at the chair across from him, "please."

"Yeah, well your message was…unexpected." Jenny settled on her chair and smiled at the waitress when she set a water in front of her.

"I went ahead and ordered for us, I hope you don't mind." Harvey folded his hands, resting them on the table.

Jenny shook her head, using her straw to stir the ice in her glass and watching it swirl. "It's fine. I have to get back to work soon anyway. But your message sounded kind of urgent so…" she raised her eyebrows, trailing off meaningfully.

Harvey nodded and cleared his throat, "Yeah, well." He had been urgent at the time. It was only mere hours ago when he'd been coaching a young, drunk, so damn _lost _looking Mike back from the proverbial ledge and the unpleasant taste the wide open fear in the boy's eyes had left in Harvey's mouth still lingered.

"Mike came to see me last night." He said, knowing full well she knew that already.

"I remember. He didn't come home. I assumed he ended up staying at your place again."

Harvey nodded an affirmation. Mike had slept on his couch last night, too drunk and upset to make his way home on his own, or for Harvey to think about letting him. He'd given the kid the old t-shirt and basketball shorts he'd worn the last time preparing for a case had drug on to the early hours of the morning and he'd seemed more than content to pass out on the luxurious black leather.

"He was just…" Harvey shook his head, unwilling to voice all the things Mike had been when he stopped over last night. Harvey shook the image of Mike's face out of his head and squinted across the table at Jenny. "How is he?"

The blonde tilted her head and smiled, "you're asking me? You spend more time with him than I do."

"That may be true," and he knew it was, he remembered when he was an associate. Twenty-hour days were to be expected, "but you're his girlfriend. He tells you things he wouldn't tell me."

"You think so?" Jenny looked at her hands and then out the window. Harvey thought there was some insecurity in her gaze that she was trying not to let show, "I'd like to think that."

Harvey watched as she seemed to have some private battle in her head, convincing herself of something before she was able to go on, and Harvey got a foreboding feeling in his stomach that Mike's days with Jenny were numbered. And he felt a bit badly about that. She seemed to be good for him.

"So? How is he?"

Jenny sat up in her chair, meeting his gaze squarely. "He's doing well, better than I expected. Better than I would be doing in his situation." Harvey nodded his agreement and pushed the thought of Mike's flashback out of his mind. Jenny sighed, pausing while the waitress placed delicately arranged salads in front of them both.

"He's not eating. I guess he's not hungry but…"

Again, Harvey nodded. "I know." He'd been trying to keep an eye on that as well. "Is he sleeping?" He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that question too. Mike's bags had bags.

"Yes," Jenny's answer surprised him, then made more sense when she said, "well, no. I mean, he doesn't sleep but that's not new. Since we've started dating I haven't known him to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. It's like he can't. Like, almost like something won't let him. Like his mind won't let him." Jenny shook her head, twirling her fork around in a plate of tossed salad, impaling a blueberry with the tines, "it wouldn't be enough for most people to function on."

"Might not be enough for him either," Harvey commented, "with the way he drinks red bull."

Jenny smiled, shaking her head, "red bull and ramen. That's what he says."

Harvey wrinkled his nose at the thought. Even when he was an associate he didn't eat quite _that _badly.

After eating in silence for a few minutes, the restaurant and the city bustling around them, Jenny looked up.

"I might have an idea, as far as the sleeping thing."

Harvey raised his eyebrows in interest.

"Lets hear it."

She tilted her head from one side to the other, blonde curls brushing both shoulders in tandem, debating.

"I'm not sure I can explain. But can you just convince him to go see his grandmother before he goes home tonight? I'll need her help."

Harvey shrugged and caught the waiter's eyes, silently asking for the check. "Since when does Mike need convincing to go see her?" Harvey remembered his brief meeting with Grandma Ross before this whole thing started. He'd even thought about dropping by to see her once or twice himself, he found it hard to believe Mike was doing any less.

Jenny sighed, "He didn't used to. But ever since this Baker thing started I think he's avoiding her. Afraid she'll know exactly what he's thinking." _Afraid she won't like it_.

Harvey's mouth quirked. "I've no doubt she could." Then, catching sight of his watch, he sat up and straightened his tie. Back to business. Enough of this mushy associate talk. "I'll make sure he leaves in time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to the office a little early so…"

"It's no problem," Jenny smiled genuinely at him and Harvey found himself returning it. She really was something. He'd have to remember to talk to Mike about not screwing this up. "Thanks for lunch Mr. Spector."

He started to turn to leave and then turned back, tossing over his shoulder.

"Call me Harvey."

* * *

><p><em>"Mike, would you state your age for the court?"<em>

_Mike cleared his throat and leaned forward to speak directly into the microphone. His throat was dry and itchy and he kept his hands clasped firmly in his lap, even though they were sweating so bad he imagined they made a squishing sound when he clenched and unclenched his fists._

_"I'm ten."_

_His voice sounded small, even through the speakers connected to the microphone and he had to fight hard against instinct to keep his gaze locked on the lawyer like Mr. Nevins said and not stare at the floor. Or worse. Stare at Baker._

_The man was looking at him, Mike knew it. He could feel it. As sure as he could feel his heart hammering against the inside of his ribs he could feel Baker's eyes on his skin. Mike cleared his throat again and shifted on the wooden chair, his feet swinging back and forth, too short to touch the ground. If he glanced to the left, he knew he would see Grammy sitting there in the front row behind the table where Mr. Nevins had all his things spread out. And beside her he would've seen Miss Wilson, his therapist. She was young with brown hair and green eyes and freckles. She was nice, Mike thought, if not a little bit annoying. She always insisted on asking him questions he either didn't want to answer, or didn't know the answers to._

_But he couldn't look away from Mr. Nevins. He couldn't break eye contact with the man, not even for a moment. Because if he did he would look over at Baker, and Mike was sure any words he had in answer to Mr. Nevin's questions would die in his throat if he made eye contact with the killer._

_"Mike, I don't want to ask you this, but I promise it's the only time, okay?"_

_Mike cleared his throat once more and raised a hand to scratch at his right arm. Grammy had made him wear that itchy black suit from the funeral again. He nodded his head quickly, his stomach clenched and rolled with the insinuation of that question. He flipped his hair off his forehead and waited, mouth too dry for his tongue to stand and he tried to summon some moisture from his uncooperative salivary glands._

_"Mike," Mr. Nevins walked forward until Mike almost had to look up to see him and he lowered his voice, like there was no one else in the room listening. And Mike noticed the way the man subtly stepped between himself and the hot, stomach-turning, infinite gaze of Theodore Baker, but didn't say so._

_"Mike I need you to tell me everything you can remember about the night your parent's died."_

_Mike swallowed hard. His glands still weren't working._

_"I was reading under my bed. It was past my bedtime but I didn't want to stop reading," Mike began quietly. He remembered, of course, what book he'd' been reading. He even remembered what page and passage he'd been on when he first heard the glass of the downstairs window break._

_Page 123._

_"I heard the glass break when he broke inside. My mom was already asleep, and I heard my dad get up to go check on it. I heard him fighting someone in the hallway and my dad said a bad word and yelled to my mom to call the police." Mike's chin trembled and his eyes filled with tears but he kept them firmly locked on Todd. _Don't look away_, the lawyer had told him. And Mike wouldn't._

_"I could feel my heart pounding so hard. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't move. Dad had sounded so scared. Even though all I wanted was for my mom to come get me and tell me it was all ok…I couldn't make a sound."_

_"After a few minutes it got quiet and I couldn't take it anymore. I crawled from under the bed and...And," Mike took a deep shuddering breath, closing his eyes briefly as the night of the murder flashed through his head, "it was five steps to the door. My mom had told me to clean it earlier that day but I didn't and I almost tripped over my library books. There were three of them. I've already finished two."_

_Mike started to shake his head, eyes still closed, back in that moment, back in his bedroom. He kept the memory frozen in that spot. He didn't want to keep going. He didn't want to walk down the hall and into his parent's bedroom and see... He could hear it. He could hear everything. _

_He didn't want to see it._

_"Mike." He heard his father say his name. Or maybe that was Todd. "Mike!"_

_Mike looked down at the blue shag carpet squished between his toes. He could hear his mother screaming._

_"Your honor, please!"_

_His mother was screaming and cursing and there was a voice he didn't recognize telling her to shut up and did she like it and her husband couldn't help her now._

_And Mike screamed. _

_Because he couldn't help her either._

_"Mike!"_

* * *

><p>"Hi, Grandma. Harvey let me out early."<p>

Edith nodded, smiling serenely at her grandson as he came through the door, looking exhausted as usual. "I know."

Mike quirked an eyebrow at her as he settled stiffly in the recliner beside her bed.

"I like him," she said, smoothing the blanket over her legs, "he reminds me of your father."

Mike coughed and laughed, smiling at his the woman like he was waiting for the punch line of a joke.

"Ah, c'mon grandma. He's nothing like Dad."

"Oh, I don't know. Strong willed. Eloquent. Pushes you to be better."

Mike shook his head, leaning his elbows on his knees. "He doesn't try to make me into something I'm not."

Edith looked at him then and the irony of that statement took a moment to catch up with him but when it did he had to laugh.

"Well, you know what I mean."

After a moment she nodded. Of course she knew. She always knew.

She reached up to touch his face, her pale hand trembling slightly as she cupped his cheek. Her brows furrowed with concern.

"You look tired, Mike."

Mike chuckled, grasping her hand and kissing her knuckles briefly, the way the men in those old movies she used to make him watch always did.

"I am tired, Grammy. I'm always tired. You know that."

She nodded, searching his clear blue eyes with her own and Mike thought maybe she was making a decision in the few silent moments that passed between them.

After that she pulled away, resting her head back and looking at him quietly.

"Jenny called me today."

"Oh yeah?" Mike asked, his eyebrows rose as he mimicked her posture, sitting back a bit in his chair, resting his head and wishing he felt the urge to close his eyes.

"Yeah." The woman nodded, looking at him carefully, gauging his reaction. To what, Mike didn't know. "She had an idea. I honestly don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner."

"The mind is a terrible thing to lose." Mike teased.

His grandma glared playfully and then shook her head with a smile, unable to keep up the charade.

"Hit play on that little radio over there." She said, barely raising her arm to point at the small black boom box at the foot of the bed.

Mike raised an eyebrow but levered himself out of the chair to do as he was asked.

After a moment of static and silence, the sound of a song he'd all but forgotten quietly started to pour from the speakers. The voice was timid at first, hesitant near the higher notes but slowly began to gain volume and confidence. He could even hear her smiling.

Mike stared wide-eyed at the speakers, his mouth dropped open, mind in full stop. Then, just as suddenly, it jump-started again and he whirled around to face his grandmother.

"How did you-" His voice cracked and he shook his head, "that's…that's mom." He said finally, disbelief coloring his voice and washing across his face.

His grandma nodded. "I used to sing that lullaby to your father when he was a baby. When you came along I taught it to your mom and she recorded herself singing it once because she was going away on a trip with her sister and you wouldn't sleep without it," the woman leaned back again on her bed, still smiling at the look of unbridled love and shock on her grandson's face, but seemingly drained by all the activity, "I'd forgotten about it until Jenny called, wondering if I knew of a way to get you to sleep. I told her where to find it in storage."

Mike had slowly made his way back over to the bed and dropped into the chair still staring at speakers. His chest hurt all of a sudden and his breathing was becoming shorter and harsher and his vision was blurry and he couldn't possibly be crying but what other explanation was there? He realized his hand was lying on the bed and felt his grandmothers small, bony, slightly cooler than he was used to, hand slide into his own and squeeze.

Unable to tear his eyes away, mesmerized by the tune that had eluded him for more than fifteen years and the single most beautiful sound he'd even heard, he squeezed it back.

Mike finally turned toward his grandmother, squeezing her hand again, unable to put into words just how much what she'd done meant to him. What she'd always done.

His mother's voice slowly drifted away as the song drew to an end and his grandma smiled.

_Goodnight, Mikey. Love you, I'll see you soon._

**Two more chapters to go if anyone out there is still into this :)**


	9. Tell Me We Both Matter

**A/N: **Much more Mike in this one to make up for the lack of Mike in the last, hopefully I can find a happy balance on that at some point.

**Chapter Nine – Tell Me We Both Matter, Don't We?**

Harvey looked up with a small smile when Donna placed a cup of coffee in front of him and Mike beamed when she handed him a mug as well.

"Thanks Donna," they echoed. Harvey sat back from the files in his lap slightly, and Mike kicked one foot up onto the coffee table, only to have it promptly kicked back down. He glared at the older lawyer over the rim of his cup.

"Be a slob at your own apartment, be a human at mine." Harvey told him, unapologetically sipping his own coffee.

Donna rolled her eyes at their antics but smiled, anything resembling normalcy was a nice reprieve. This case was personal for all of them now and any effort to keep things light during days that had recently become too heavy were welcome by all.

They had spent the better part of the evening spread out at Harvey's place, having headed there right after finishing the workday at Pearson Hardman, picking up sushi on the way. Mike had mentioned, well, more like shyly indicated and Donna had picked up on it, that he didn't really want to discuss his case at the office where just anyone could walk in and learn of the darkest moment in his life. And when Donna had made him aware of that fact, Harvey had agreed.

And while he'd already shown he didn't mind being at Mike's apartment, Harvey's was closer to the office and obviously had much more room to spread out and think.

Still, it was nearing ten o'clock and she needed to be getting home. That was why she'd brought the boys coffee, Harvey had started yawning an hour ago and Mike looked ready to fall over at any moment.

"Is there anything else you need, Harvey?" She asked, picking up her coat and shoes.

He shook his head and Mike smiled at her again.

"Thanks again for everything Donna."

The redhead looked at him fully and in that sisterly tone only Harvey seemed to realize she had, said, "We look after our own, Mike." She smiled fleetingly before turning back to Harvey, "I'll see you both in court tomorrow." It was a statement but came across like a question and Harvey nodded, not looking up but instead leaning forward again over the file in his lap, highlighter cap between his teeth.

A moment later he was surprised to hear Donna's voice again when he heard the door unlock and open.

"Harvey? You have a visitor."

He looked up and watched a bald man in khakis, and a tucked in polo with a dark brown and grey mustache walk into his apartment, a wary looking Donna in tow, holding her stiletto in such a way one might think she was preparing to use it as a weapon.

"Todd."

Harvey looked over to see Mike had stood from his spot on the couch, file and evidence photo clutched in his hand, staring wide-eyed at the newcomer.

Todd Nevins smiled, "good to see you again, Mike." He gave the younger man a once over, "you look like you're doing well. Too skinny though," he added after a beat.

Mike looked down at himself. Why did people keep saying that? Well, he _was_ drowning in a pair of Harvey's basketball shorts and a t-shirt, both of which were a few sizes too big for him.

"It's just because of these clothes." He mumbled, looking back up.

Todd hummed, the lines of his forehead deepening with disapproval before he turned his attention to Harvey, who was standing and extending a hand toward him.

"Thanks for coming, Todd," he moved his head to look over the man's shoulder at Donna, "it's all right Donna, go home and get some rest, we'll see you tomorrow."

The redhead gave Todd one more wary glance before nodding and heading back over to the door, locking it as she left.

Harvey showed Todd to a seat on the couch and they both sat down. Mike didn't seem to notice, still on his feet staring across the room at the man.

"What are you," he glanced at Harvey, "doing here? I mean, it's not that I mind I just…you're retired." He finished awkwardly.

Todd nodded, scanning a handful of documents Harvey handed him.

"You're right kid. But this was _my_ case. I'm the one that put Theodore Baker away all those years ago and he isn't getting out of super max before the turn of the century if I have anything to say about it. Retired or not."

"Oh." Was all Mike said, looking relieved and a bit anxious to have Todd in the room.

After another moment or two Harvey looked up, raising an eyebrow at the fact that he was still standing.

"You gotta use the bathroom or something, kid?"

"Huh? Oh," Mike sat heavily on the far end of the couch from Todd, burying his nose in the file he'd been reading previously.

Two hours later found Mike stretched out on the couch, his head buried into the crook of his arm, highlighter dangling uselessly from his fingers and snoring softly. On the floor in front of him was a half eaten slice of pizza Harvey had forced on him and an empty can of Red Bull.

Todd had kicked off his shoes and pulled a chair over to the dining table with Harvey. The two were bent over a summary of the newest evidence, discussing prosecution strategies in hushed tones when Mike started moving agitatedly on the couch. Both men looked up, Harvey's muscles had already begun tightening instinctively, preparing to move, when Mike quieted suddenly, the look of fear and anger smoothing off his face.

"Déjà vu," Todd said quietly, causing Harvey to look over at him.

"He used to do that in my office. If a meeting went longer than expected, or trial prep was dragging on in the late afternoon, it was never long before he was asleep on my couch or had pulled a pillow to the floor and fell asleep. And just like now, it looks like, he never stayed that way long." A frown creased his brow and Todd shook his head, "funny that the memory of that night should still affect him so acutely."

Harvey looked back over at Mike's sleeping form, one arm tossed haphazardly over the arm of the couch, foot hanging off the side. "Photographic memory," he muttered.

Todd sat back in his chair still staring over at Mike and sipped the bourbon Harvey had poured him an hour ago, one hand stuck in his pocket. "The kid hasn't changed much since he was ten. A little taller, hair a little shorter but," he stroked his mustache, "still…strong, smart. Remarkable, I guess."

Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was the inherent emotional attachment he felt to the case (or the young man sleeping on his couch) but whatever it was, a little bit of caring leaked out of Harvey at that moment.

"You're right," he said with a sigh and a fond smile, "he hasn't changed much."

Todd looked over at him and smiled just as a sleep groggy voice sounded from the couch.

"I heard that."

Mike smiled and Harvey looked around for something to throw at him.

* * *

><p><em>Mike sat in English class staring at the teacher in the front of the class, debating seriously inside his head whether or not he'd seen a green tail poke out from underneath her skirt when she came around from behind her desk.<em>

_Shit._

_He really _really_ needed to stop coming to school high._

_"Mr. Ross?"_

_Mike was studying a pencil drawing of a heart with the initials EJ inside it on his desktop so hard he didn't hear his name being called the first two times. He finally looked up blearily and rubbed his eyes, squinting a few rows ahead at the teacher._

_"Huh?" Came his intelligent answer._

_The woman sighed, tilting her head forward slightly, the frames of her glasses slipping down her nose, only to be impatiently pushed back up._

_"I asked a question about the reading assignment. Did you even do it?"_

_"Um," he glanced to the right to see the book set on the edge of another kid's desk. _**Hatchet**_. _

_He grimaced, remembering the last time he'd had that book in his hands, cowering under his bed with a flashlight, listening to his mother scream._

_"Uh, the reading assignment?" Mike shook his head to get the memories out. "No."_

_Again, the woman sighed. "Mike, how do you expect to complete the test if you haven't read the book?"_

_Mike pulled his attention off the buzzing of the florescent lights overhead and slumped further in his chair. He would kill for a bag of chips right now._

_"I've read it."_

_"You just said-"_

_"I said I didn't do the reading assignment. I've read the book before." He explained giving the teacher a look that came across as bored but was really just very, very…relaxed._

_The woman just shook her head, going to her desk to retrieve a pile of papers and giving a few of them out to each of the students in the first row to pass back._

_"Lets hope that's enough Mr. Ross," she said, eyeing him._

_Mike looked down at the twenty-question quiz in front of him. Multiple choice. He smirked. Too easy._

_Five minutes later Mike got up and walked his test up to the teacher's desk._

_"Finished already?" She asked, mildly surprised, moderately skeptical._

_Mike just shrugged and stood there as she glanced over his answers, then furrowing her brow as she gave them a closer look. Finally, she looked up at him and Mike stared at her through round, bloodshot eyes._

_"Unbelievable. A hundred percent."_

_Mike shrugged again and the teacher sat back, dumbfounded. She glanced at the clock._

_"Well, I guess you can just go back to your seat. I've allowed a half hour for everyone to finish so…" She trailed off and Mike nodded, making his way back to his desk, dropping into it happily._

_He folded his skinny arms on the desktop and laid his head down in them, effectively shutting out the light of the room._

_Time to get some much-needed shut eye._

* * *

><p>"Objection! Your honor prosecution cannot interact directly with the jury!"<p>

"How are we to prove that Mr. Ross' memory is reliable without doing so, your honor? How would the jury know the demonstration wasn't rehearsed?"

The two lawyers argued across the room and Mike fidgeted on the stand. It didn't feel any less big or foreboding than the last time he was there, and he couldn't wait to get down, but he still had cross-examination to look forward to. He wasn't even half done yet.

The judge, a strong woman, young for a judge, probably no older than mid forties, tilted her head at Harvey's comment and then nodded.

"I'll allow it, but tread lightly Mr. Specter." She advised.

Harvey nodded graciously and then looked back at the man on the jury he'd been addressing. "Please sir, if you don't mind."

Mike watched the jury member reach into his pocket and pull out his wallet, rifling through it for a moment while Harvey looked on patiently. Harvey had only been on the legal team as an assistant up to this point, the prosecutor from the DA's office handling most of the proceedings. But they'd both agreed early on that Harvey would be the one to question Mike, wanting the kid to be as comfortable and relaxed on the stand as possible. Today, Todd Nevins also sat at the lawyer's table, though in an assistance capacity alone.

"Mike."

He looked up from where he'd been staring at his hands and realized Harvey was holding out a small white piece of paper to him.

"Oh," he took it and saw that it was a lengthy receipt from a grocery store. He studied it for a few seconds and then handed it back. Harvey returned it to its rightful owner and nodded.

"Go ahead."

The man looked uncertain but glanced down at the paper.

"What's the cashier's number?"

"1246765." Mike answered immediately.

The man looked up in surprise, eyebrows at his hairline.

"How much did I have in coupon savings?"

"$23.45."

"What's the phone number to call to complete the service survey?"

Mike scratched his nose. "1-800-455-8922. And her name was Mary."

"What?" The man asked, looking up.

"Your cashier."

He looked back down at his receipt and shook his head. "He's right. About all of it."

A murmur broke out in the courtroom and Harvey stepped forward.

"Now that your memory has been verified," he paused, locking eyes with Mike, as if taking a moment to ask permission.

Mike nodded. He was ready.

"Mike," Harvey began cautiously, "what do you remember about the night of your parent's murder?"

He swallowed dryly and glanced over to the right, looking at Baker for the first time.

"Everything," he said after a moment, a threat and a promise in his eyes. Unyielding as he stared over at his parent's killer. Baker stared right back but Mike's voice never faltered, "I remember everything."

**Ok, so I might have two chapters after this one...I honestly have no idea. We'll see how the dice fall...**


	10. You and Me Won't Be Unhappy

**A/N:** So here we are, we finally made it. The final chapter. I'm falling asleep at my computer right now so it's not quite what I wanted it to be. But it says what I think I wanted it to and it pretty much ties all the loose ends. I hope it lives up to expectations. If I read it tomorrow and it's terrible, I might edit it and repost, but here's hoping that's not needed...THanks as always to all the readers, reviewers and lurkers!

* * *

><p>Donna's heels clicked loudly through the courtroom hallway. She'd had a hell of a time with one of Harvey's pickier clients who'd insisted he <em>needed <em>an appointment today regardless of what else his lawyer had going on.

Well Donna had set him straight on that sure enough.

The only place Harvey needed to be today was right where he was. Right where Donna needed to be.

And Mr. Dawson would take his four pm appointment for next Tuesday and he would _like it. _

Donna flipped her hair off her shoulder as she approached the courtroom where the Baker trial was taking place. The security guard started to stand to stop her but, upon seeing the look on her face and remembering her from previous days during the trial, he merely held a finger to his lips and pulled the door open for her.

Donna gave him a thin smile as _thank you_ and _obviously I know to be quiet nitwit _and made her way inside.

Mike was on the stand, looking for all the world to be about 12 years old and staring at the defense attorney like he'd just insulted his mother.

And really, he had.

Donna took the seat right behind the partition separating the room where Jenny usually sat. But the blonde had been called away on a family emergency and Donna had been planning to attend the last day of the trial anyway. With a deep breath, she turned to face Mike and attempt to glare a hole in the back of opposing council's head.

"As you can see, Mr. Ross," Lawrence Dobson handed Mike a piece of paper, which the younger man glanced at with a grimace, "the DNA that was found in your mother was not your father's, or Mr. Baker's."

"That doesn't sound like a question." came Mike's terse response, using all his willpower not to ball up the stupid white paper and stomp it under his foot. Over Dobson's shoulder he saw Harvey set his jaw and give him a minute shake of his head.

_Settle, Mike. Take it easy._

Mike took a deep breath and shifted in the chair.

_I'm trying._

"You're right," the lawyer nodded, pacing slowly with one hand in the pocket of his brown suit. "Here's one. Are you really telling me that, beyond a _shadow_ of a doubt, you are _100_% sure that the man you saw that night was Theodore Baker? That there's simply _no_ chance _whatsoever_ that you're ten year old mind saw something else instead of the truth, or that the memory of that night hasn't warped even _slightly_ in the past _fifteen_ years?" The man asked, and his eyebrows would have been at his hairline if it hadn't faded significantly toward the back of his head.

"Objection your honor, badgering the witness." Harvey leapt out of his chair.

"Overruled council. Sit. Down," the dark woman glared over her glasses at him. She'd had enough of this fancy lawyer objecting to just about everything the opposing council said to this kid on the stand.

Mike raised a subtle eyebrow at Harvey.

_Now who needs to settle down?_

Harvey gave a tiny roll of his eyes and smirked.

_Shut it._

"Mr. Ross? An answer to my question?"

Mike slowly brought his eyes back over to the prosecution and sighed, tilting his head, "Honestly?"

"Well, you are under oath. I'm sure I don't need to remind a lawyer of what that means."

Mike nodded, pursing his lips, a dangerous edge in his eyes.

"No. There's no chance."

"Now Mr. Ross-"

"You wanted me to answer honestly, Mr. Dobson, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me do so." Mike cut the man off.

He glanced at the jury before continuing.

"Honestly, I wish there was. Its been fifteen years, you're right, and I still remember it like it was this morning. I still remember the panic in my father's voice when he yelled for my mom to call 9-1-1. And I remember the way she screamed when he..." Mike swallowed hard and continued bravely, looking over at the Harvey, who nodded.

_Go on. You can do it. _

"When Baker raped her." Mike's voice cracked over the word but he bulldozed forward. "I wish, Mr. Dobson, that I could close my eyes at night and not see my mother's blood on the bedroom wall. And I wish I didn't see Baker's face every time I breathe. If it weren't for this damn memory maybe I wouldn't find it so hard to sleep at night."

He took another breath, letting his eyes roam over the audience in the courtroom, to Donna and Harvey and Todd. He shook his head.

"And I get it. My parent's marriage wasn't perfect. I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing that, so _thanks_," he tossed an accusing glance at the defense attorney, his heart twisting in his chest at the thought of his mother with another man.

"But to answer your question. Yes. I can tell you _beyond a shadow of a doubt _what happened that night...I'm not any more sure now than I was when I was ten years old that Baker is the man who killed my parents. Because there wasn't a doubt in my mind back then about what I saw, and there isn't one now. Theodore Baker raped and killed my mother and father and there's only one place he belongs more than a maximum security prison." For the first time Mike pulled his eyes over to Baker. The man's face was red, an angry snarl on his lips. Mike spoke his next words cold and quiet, meant only for Baker's ears.

"And that's death row."

* * *

><p><em>"Now remember, Mike, if the lawyer asks you a question you're not sure how to answer, what do you do?" Todd Nevins was standing, pacing the length of his office, trying to cram in some last minute trial prep with Mike before the hearing the next day.<em>

_Mike rubbed his eyes with both fists and answered around a large yawn, "don't fidget. Tell the truth."_

_Todd nodded, satisfied with the answer. He tugged at his tie, loosening it and then pulling it off altogether, tossing it onto his desk._

_"And where do you look when you're answering a question?"_

_He waited, but no answer was immediately forthcoming._

_"Mike?" Todd asked and came around to the other side of the couch the small boy was sitting on to see more than just the top of his mop of blonde hair. A smile curled under his bushy mustache at what he found. Shaking his head, he took his suit jacket off the arm and draped it over the child's body. Mike had curled up in the fetal position and was pressed back into the arm of the couch, face relaxed in sleep._

_"I guess that concludes trial prep for today," he muttered, and got up to find the number to call Mike's grandmother among the piles of paper on his desk._

_"Todd?" A sleep muddled voice called out quietly._

_"Yeah?"_

_"Why'd you b'come a lawyer?" Mike slurred, not even opening his eyes._

_Todd sat down beside Mike on the couch and clasped his hands, thinking._

_"I guess I…well I wanted to help people." He said, thinking of the numbers of terrible criminals he'd put in prison over the past twenty years. He smiled, remembering some of the looks of gratitude grieving families often gave when they felt justice had been served._

_"I thought doct'rs did that."_

_Todd looked over at Mike and slowly reached out to smooth the blonde hair off his forehead. He sighed._

_"Other people do too, Mike. In whatever way they can."_

_Mike shifted, burrowing deeper into the arm of the couch._

_"Todd?"_

_"Yeah," Todd answered back, out of habit. The kid was nearly dead to the world._

_"Thanks for helpin' me an' Grammy. Maybe I'll be a lawy'r too someday."_

_Todd felt a place in his chest warm at the sleepily spoken words and the innocent, awestruck adoration Mike seemed to doll out so easily._

_"You know Mike," Todd said quietly, "I have no doubt you'll excel wat whatever it is you decide to put that incredible mind to."_

* * *

><p>Mike stood close to Harvey when the jury reentered the courtroom to deliver their verdict. It had been barely two hours. Harvey, Mike and Todd and the new prosecutor from the DA's office were ushered into a conference room on another floor of the courthouse when the jury was dismissed for deliberation. Mike had sat at the table staring out the window the first hour. Eventually Harvey had bullied him into eating a half an applesauce and Jenny appeared at some point and held his hand for the rest of the time.<p>

Mike didn't remember anything else, though if he tried he could quiet easily pull up the memory to match each moment, but it was like watching a movie about his life. He felt unattached and floaty in the memories. Like they weren't really his. Except the anger. He remembered the anger.

He wondered if it would ever completely go away.

Mike fidgeted beside him and Harvey looked over to give him a warning glance, Mike stilled but didn't look him in the eye, afraid he other lawyer would read his mind.

He clenched his hands into fists and jammed them into his pockets, ignoring the burning sensation on his neck that told him Baker was in the room. He watched the jury members file inside, trying to decipher the looks on their faces. He wasn't sure what he'd do if they didn't read the verdict he was expecting.

It probably wouldn't matter. He had the best lawyer in the city on retainer.

And who would convict him for murdering the man that killed his parents anyway?

Mike felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and instinctively pulled it out to glance at the screen.

He frowned, recognizing the number and wondering what it could be about.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

Mike swallowed past the lump forming in his throat and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

"We have, you're honor. In the appeal for Theodore Baker versus New York City," The small woman in a thing grey pants suit glanced up at Mike and he inwardly cursed her.

_Just get on with it already!_

_"_The jury finds in favor of the original ruling and state that the defendant should continue to serve his original sentence of Life plus 20 years with no chance for parole."

The courtroom erupted immediately as the jury's ruling was spoken. A grin broke out across Mike's face so wide might've split it in half. Harvey's was one to equal it and Mike couldn't help himself, he threw his arms around Harvey in a hug and was more than a little surprised when the older man simply returned it before pulling away quickly.

"Thanks." He glanced over Harvey's shoulder at Todd and the DA, "all of you."

Todd just nodded and the laugh lines around Harvey's face crinkled as he said, "Don't go getting all mushy on us Mike."

Mike found himself wrapped in a hug from Donna and she held fast to him as they were herded out of the courtroom, making way for another case.

Out in the lobby his phone vibrated again in his breast pocket, reminding him of a voicemail. Mike felt his stomach clench and stepped away from Harvey and the rest, ignoring Donna's questioning look as he pressed his phone to his ear.

Slowly, Mike's eyes widen and all the color drains form his face. Donna felt him tense beside her and turned with a questioning look.

"Mike?"

"I gotta go." He said, suddenly frantic and already moving toward the door.

"Why what's the-"

"It's Gram." Was all Mike could say, his throat closing up on him. Seeing the man's obvious distress, Donna nodded, not needing any more of an explanation.

"I'll tell Harvey, we'll go with you."

Mike shook his head. "I've got to go. I gotta go now." His eyes flicked over quickly to where Harvey and Todd were surrounded by reporters from the media outlets covering the case. He figeted, already moving toward the door.

"Okay, just go Mike," Donna nodded, and took his hand and squeezed it once before giving him a push, "we'll be right behind you.

And with that, he was gone.

* * *

><p>Harvey didn't blink against the flash of cameras or wince at the number of questions reporters flung into his face. He spoke with all the charm and charisma he was known for, and he held up his hands to calm the media frenzy around them.<p>

"I think I speak for myself, as well as the DA and Mr. Nevins, the original prosecutor on this case who came out of retirement specifically to see this appeal through, when I say we are all more than happy with the outcome of the trial. Obviously the jury saw facts and wasn't swayed by the defenses attempt at deflecting blame from a notorious serial killer. We'd also like to thank the brave testimony of Mr. Mike Ross, without whom it's very possible we'd have a killer walking around tonight. Thank you."

Immediately the questions started up again but Harvey pushed through the crowd, ignoring them all. He'd already noticed Mike was missing and Donna's face was taut with worry.

"What is it?"

Without preamble, Donna took hold of his arm, moving them toward the door.

"We need to get to the Nursing Home."

* * *

><p>Harvey was very composed. All about appearances. Never a wrinkle on his person, never a thread out of place.<p>

Except right now.

Because right now he was almost running in his handmade Italian leather shoes, the soles slapping hard against the linoleum floors. The florescent lights overhead did nothing to hide the worry wrinkles on his forehead and around his mouth and his hair was disheveled and unkempt.

Because right now Harvey wasn't composed. And he wasn't worried about appearances.

Right now Harvey was worried about the kid.

Today was supposed to be a win for them. It was supposed to be grins and high fives (bad taste be damned) and stuffed crust pizza and a beer together at a bar.

It wasn't supposed to be sad.

It wasn't supposed to be _this._

When Harvey and Donna burst into Edith's room Mike barely spared them a glance. He was standing beside the bed, almost bent over, holding the woman's small, frail hand inside both of his own. His eyes were rimmed red, suit wrinkled and he was biting his lip while glassy tears gathered in his eyes, but didn't fall.

"Grammy please." He whispered.

Edith didn't open her eyes, but a small smile crossed her face and she slowly raised the hand Mike wasn't holding, it trembled as it moved to rest atop his larger ones. She was much paler even than the last time Harvey had seen her, he pursed his lips in sympathy and regret.

"I love you Mike."

Harvey felt Donna's hand slip into his and squeezed it when she buried her face in his shoulder. He could tell she was crying and he couldn't blame her, even from across the room they could see the kid's heart breaking.

Mike shook his head, leaning down further. "No Grammy, don't go." He took a sharp breath, his voice falling another octave into a whisper, no longer strong enough to hold up a normal volume. "Please don't leave me alone."

Edith's eyes opened then and locked with Mike's. She remembered a time, once before, when he'd said that to her. His first night staying with her after his parent's died, Mike had pleaded with her to stay. Not to go. He couldn't be alone. He'd been trying not to cry then, too.

"Mike," she said quietly, wishing she had the strength to hold him, "I'm not leaving you alone." Slowly she turned and gave a meaningful look to Harvey and Donna, tucked unobtrusively in the corner of the room. Mike's eyes stayed locked on hers, afraid if he moved he would fall apart. "You don't need me anymore."

Mike's chin started to tremble and he took a calming breath to keep the sobs down, and instead rearranged their hands so both of hers were folded between his and he shook his head again.

"I still need you. I'll always need you." He said, his voice stronger than before. "Please."

"Mike," Edith again, "don't do this to yourself. I'm an old woman. I'm just glad I lasted as long as I did." She smiled and gave a slight nod, "I'm proud of you."

It was all Mike could do to keep his composure. He didn't want to cry now. Not now. If he cried now he wasn't sure he would ever stop and he'd promised himself at his parent's funeral he would never make his grandma see him like that again.

Slowly, he lowered his head until it rested on her shoulder, his eyes clamped shut against the tears that pushed forward.

"Tell Mom and dad," he started before his voice broke and he cut himself off again, "tell them…"

"Shh," Edith turned her head to kiss his ear gently and pulled a hand free to rest against the back of his head. "I will. And we'll all be watching over you Michael so…" she tapped his head to let him know she wanted him to look at her and he lifted his head. "don't do anything stupid."

Mike gasped out a laugh and nodded, taking a bit of comfort in the familiar banter. Edith's eyes closed, and this time, she didn't open them again.

"I'll do my best Grammy. I promise."

Harvey and Donna watched the exchange from across the room. After Mike's last words several minutes of silence passed before the two realized the old woman was already gone. Donna's makeup was smeared all across her face and Harvey's eyes were soft and gentle, as he watched Mike slowly extract his hands from Edith's and reach down to pull her white sheet up and over her head.

He heard Donna gasp, apparently realizing what Harvey had figured out a moment before and she slowly crossed the room to stand beside Mike. He was staring down at the white sheet, eyes and face dry, looking shell-shocked and young and fragile.

"Mike, are you-" Donna began quietly, reaching out to touch his arm.

Mike jerked away, shaking his head. "I'm fine."

Again, he sounded it. He even looked it. His face a mask of calm and shoulders relaxed as if Donna had just asked if he wanted a cup of coffee.

But Harvey was just about done with all this 'fine' bullshit. The kid may be _fine _when dealing with flashbacks of his parent's deaths and _fine _functioning on three hours of sleep for the past nine and a half months and _fine _pretending to be strong when forced to spend hours on end in the same room with his parent's killer and rehash their murders on the stand again.

But he sure as _hell _wasn't _fine _now.

Not after this.

"Mike," Donna looked startled the young man side stepped her again and suddenly made a move to get around her, and take three long strides across the room to get o the door. He brushed past Harvey, staring at the floor, looking for all the world every bit of _fine _he was pretending to be.

He might have gotten away with it too. If Harvey hadn't reached out just as he passed him and caught hold of Mike's arm, yanking him back so that he slammed into his chest and wrapped his arms around him, holding him in a hug before either of them really knew what was happening.

Mike struggled silently, trying to pull away, pushing against Harvey's chest because he could _do this _anymore. But Harvey held fast, not saying anything and suddenly the kid wasn't pushing against him, he was clinging to him as if Harvey was the only thing keeping him standing.

Maybe he was.

Harvey moved his hands to brace one against he back of Mike's head the way his grandma had done, the other pushed against his back, keeping him close.

He looked over his shoulder at Donna, who stood with her arms wrapped around herself beside the bed. She was crying again.

Harvey could feel the muscles in Mike's back, tense from trying to hold it all in. Of _course _the kid was being stubborn.

"C'mon Mike," Harvey whispered finally, "don't hold it in kid. It'll break you."

Mike shook his head at first, resisting like he had when Harvey had pulled him into the hug to begin with.

"I'm broken either way." Mike whispered and Harvey closed his eyes, his heart twisting uncomfortably in his chest and, not knowing what else to see, he just held him tighter.

A solid three seconds later Harvey could feel Mike shaking in his arms, followed quickly by gut wrenching sobs that Harvey felt ripping his own chest in two.

Harvey hadn't realized he was crying as well until he felt Donna's hand on his arm. He looked at her, locking gazes with her just for a moment before she leaned in and wrapped her arms around them both, he face back to being buried in Harvey's shoulder.

"Not broken." Harvey said finally, hoping Mike could hear him between his sobs, "we've got you."

* * *

><p>Harvey, Mike, Donna and Jenny were all sprawled across Mike's apartment dressed from head to toe in black. Harvey had privately come to the conclusion that his funeral suit had seen too much action of late and he was ready to shove it to the back of his closet and leave it there for a while.<p>

It was late and the apartment was dark, illuminated only by the glow of a streetlight outside and the blue lights flickering out from the television where an old Cary Grant movie was playing.

Donna was asleep in the chair, her feet in Harvey's lap after he gave her a foot massage because apparently the heels she chose to wore were a half a size too small (they were just so damn amazing and was it really her fault the store was all out of her size?). Jenny had come back and fallen asleep on Mike's bed right after they returned from the funeral, having boarded a red eye back from Ohio at four am the day before in order to be there in time.

The clock on the wall above the television read three in the morning. Mike was nursing a glass of whiskey, eyes wide open and unseeingly staring at the television while Harvey's empty glass was still clutched in his hand, resting on his knee.

"I asked you once," Mike began, his voice a startling interruption to the silence left in the spaces of the quiet movie, "if what we do really matters."

Harvey looked over at the other end of the couch, but Mike was still staring at the television.

"I remember."

Mike nodded, breaking his trance on the screen to look down at the drink in his hand. "I get it now. I mean, sometimes we're gonna make mistakes and somebody's gonna get hurt. But, I mean, for every one case that doesn't go the right way, there's four that go right. And maybe the person I represent one day will feel the way I felt today when that jury read the verdict. I think," he cleared his throat and finally looked up, "I think that matters."

Harvey smiled with the corner of his mouth and raised his empty glass in a toast to him.

"Good for you, Mike." He said sincerely and Mike's blush was visible even with the low light in the room.

"And I know you think my wanting to help the client, and wanting to be the good guy is something I need to grow out of but," he shrugged, remembering the lecture his grandma had given him just before he met Harvey, "it's all she ever wanted me to be."

Harvey nodded, because Mike was right, it was something he thought he should grow out of, especially if he was ever going to make it as a corporate lawyer. But he glanced up at a picture he'd noticed of Mike the first time he came over to his place all those weeks ago. Mike, no more than seven or eight, with white blonde hair and a goofy smile, framed by both his parents on either side. The kid's smile hadn't changed since the day that photo was taken, Harvey thought with a smirk.

"You know Mike," Harvey said finally, "I kind of hope you don't either." He got a mischievous glint in his eyes and raised a finger in warning. "But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try to smack it outta ya'."

Mike grinned and Harvey shook his head and smiled, both returning to the movie. The next time Harvey looked over, Mike was fast asleep curled up on the couch and shoved into the arm of the couch and Harvey couldn't help but hope this time the peaceful slumber would last.

Harvey glanced at the coffee table and sees one of the books (in the sea of books) was set down face open, creasing the paperback spine. The pages were yellow and age-worn soft. He recognized the title as something Mike had mentioned before.

_Hatchet_.

It was the book he'd been reading the night of his parent's murders. He thought it odd Mike should be reading it again, but then, he wouldn't be the one to tell the kid how to cope with what he'd been through.

Curious, he picked it up and flipped it over, a slight smile quirked his mouth as he realized what it must have been that had the kid's attention after all these years.

He finished reading and sighed, nodding.

"Nite Harvey." Mike's sleep muddled voice carried over to him as Harvey slunk down further on the couch, putting his feet on the table to get more comfortable.

"Mike? Go to sleep."

And, Mike, never one to argue with his boss, did.

_He was not the same and he would never be again like he had been. _

_That was one of the true things, the new things. _

_And the other one was that he would not die, he would not let death in again. _

_Page 123, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen_

END


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